Ariakan I: The Canker
by Maeve Riannon
Summary: Son of a dark goddess, heir of the man that made the world tremble in the War of the Lance, young Ariakan is now a prisoner of the Knights of Solamnia. Fifth chapter: Kitiara attacks..what? Legends spoiler.
1. Blood And Water

Foreword:

Ladies and gentlemen, just a word before this starts. The story I´m writing features Ariakan, son of Ariakas and leader of the dark forces in "Dragons of Summer Flame", a book by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. It will show some parts of his life, from his imprisonment by the Solamnic Knights to his death in the Chaos War, and, as it´s possible, how those parts of his life were irremediably entwined with the history of Krynn. Since it will undoubtedly be very long, I have decided to  divide it in four thematic cycles, each one with a number of chapters, and this one is the first posting of the first thematic cycle (called "The Canker"), about his stay with the Knights of Solamnia. I hope my pains served to produce something even remotely interesting and/or pleasurable  for someone.

Last, but not least, I have to say that this story (not the chapter or the thematic cycle, the story) is dedicated to Margit Ritzka for...hmm, ok, let´s see...for beta, alpha, gamma and all that, for brainstorming, for illuminating discussion, for evil and not so evil ideas, for encouragement, for occasionally in-topic (or not) haikus, for getting inside other people´s (and other characters´s) minds at such a speed ;), and, of course, for her birthday, which was last month.

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Takhisis,  Weis, and Hickman.

Ariakan Part I: The Canker 

Chapter One: Blood and Water. 

Water...

It was under his feet. He could feel it, it caressed him with gracious indifference as he lay in the sand, oblivious of his surroundings for just a single moment of truce. Maybe it even spoke to him, but his ears did not fully comprehend the meaning of the words.

_If _they had a meaning.

"Ariakan!" he heard a much better known voice far away.

The young man did not move.

* * * * * * * * * *

They were going to die*. At least that was what everybody was shouting while the raging gale threatened the masts, tearing the black sails; and towering doom in the shape of ferocious waves attacked the already weak flanks of the fated ship.

"My lord!"

"What's the matter now?" Ariakas shouted, trying to hear his own voice in the middle of the deafening noise. He did not care about who was there, if he ever remembered his name; though the face looked somewhat familiar to him. The captain of the ship, he guessed.

"My lord, there...there is a breach in the starboard wall of the ship. The men are trying to block it, but many have despaired already... I believe..."

"Despaired!" Enraged at their cowardice, Ariakas growled and pushed the man aside, watching him fall to the floor with an animal satisfaction. At the same time, a great wave crashed against the prow of the ship, and swept them both in a turmoil of salt water. "I will make you despair!" he cried while regaining his stance. "Save the damn ship or I promise you that you will meet a more horrible fate than just to be drowned!"

The wretched captain crawled aside. His salty hair was all over his face, covering his expression, though he was evidently frightened, and more of his passenger than of the Sea, as the first recognised with a brief smile of satisfaction.

"I...I'll return with them, my lord" he said, in a low voice that for some strange reason could be heard rising above the screams of the sailors in the other side of the ship. "I'll do what I can. But it's Zeboim herself who is having fun with us, and she's pitiless. We tried to avoid the Sea of Istar taking this course, but she..."

"Zeboim!" The eyes of Ariakas flickered dangerously at the mention of the goddess´s name.

"She never forgives", the captain muttered, backing away a bit more but without actually leaving. The sudden spark in the other man's eyes held him entranced, as if he was watching a serpent.

"Zeboim." Ariakas repeated more slowly. The name sounded resolute, firm, that time. With vehemency, a hand slipped under the black armour of the servant of Takhisis, tearing apart the clothes, and grasping avidly something dark and ominous that seemed to eat the faint unearthly gleam of the few lights that still remained on deck. As he held it, that man seemed an alien creature, a vision from the Abyss.

" That petty goddess! The terror of weak and ignorant people!" he shouted in a potent voice to the deafening turmoil that was about to engulf them, unaware of the sudden alarm of those who surrounded him. The captain cowered in horror, unable to believe his ears. 

"My lord, no!"

But Ariakas went on, unstoppable.

"Leave the ship in peace and return to your deep dwelling place, Lady of the Seas! Or, if not, attack me and tear this away from me, and face the wrath of your infernal mother!"

"Watch out!" the captain shouted. Too late; for the gigantic wave that had been rolling towards them stayed immobile for a second, and then fell over them with a loud crash, covering them with oblivion. A horrible, ringing laugh tortured their ears for a long second. 

And then, everything was quiet once more.

_* * * * * _

"Takhisis..."

He couldn't feel it at first. He was floating in darkness, driven by some mysterious force that he was no longer able to control, and the only thing he could do, even if that made him seethe in anger and humiliation, was to let it happen to him.

"Queen of Darkness, come to my aid" Ariakas prayed, his lungs about to explode. After all, it had been for her service that he had ventured to cross the sea to get help from the Minotaurs who lived in the isle of Mithas. It was only fair that she helped him now against her capricious daughter, or wasn't it so?

A wave made him roll in the sand, shaking his limbs pitilessly. All of a sudden, his prayer stopped, and he caught a hungry breath of air as a shiver crossed his damp, exposed body.

Sand. Air. Life. He was alive. 

Somewhere...

_* * * * *_

After some time lying flat on the ground, Ariakas did manage at last to open his eyes and look around him. It was dead night, but no cloud covered that sky that had been threatening to fall on top of their heads when he last had seen it. On the contrary, the gentle light of the two moons, silver and purple, shone over the small beach where he had been thrown by the angry waves, only kept in check by the impenetrable darkness of the third, which only he could see of all his companions.

That brought the first urgent and immediate thought to his mind. Where were they? After his prayer to Takhisis, and his defiant challenge to Zeboim, the Sea had engulfed them all, and now there wasn't any sign of life to be seen anywhere. Not even the remnants of the wreck.

_Perhaps I will find some trace of them if I explore this strange land_, he thought, gathering forces to get up. _Or, in any case, I'll find out something more than if I stay here mulling and whining._

Strengthened by the thought, the servant of Takhisis struggled to his feet and saw with satisfaction that he was not wounded. He uttered then a deep, concentrate whisper of _"Shirak**"_ to make an arcane light began to glow in the palm of his hand, and, under its flicker, he found his way past the beach and through a desolate rocky landscape that seemed to belong to a nightmare, searching for a light or a voice. There should be someone else, they should have survived. There should be a village around, some houses of fishermen..

However, in the end, he was forced to stop abruptly by the waves crashing on another beach similar to the first one, disheartened. An island! It was a desert island in the middle of the Sea, and he was alone. Ariakas kept shouting for a sign of life for another while, but only the echo answered him until he grew tired of his own voice, and his last hopes soon became too fragile and faded.

 Nothing. What could he have expected?

The dark cleric sighed. There was no one out there. It was evident that his men had perished, as he would have if he hadn't been protected by the Queen of Dragons, and as everybody would have indeed after trying Zeboim's short temper while crossing the sea or simply calling for her attention. In spite of his brave words, he knew she was no petty goddess, and that her wrath was often deadly for those who, unlike him, could not count on the protection of the only being that she feared more than her own life, her mother. The Giant Turtle loved to wreck ships, to see helpless sailors sinking and drowning, their desperate struggles until the end came for them.

_Fine. So now I'm stuck in this island, and there was no time to lose already when I left Sanction. Takhisis! This does not suit your plans._

Irreverent in his anger, Ariakas swore to finish the short prayer, and voiced an enchantment to build a fire. He did not like magic fires, as they weren't half as effective as real ones, but there wasn't a single piece of wood in this gloomy place. As there wasn't any food. He would have to execute tiring and consuming spells to create some, and in the end it would hardly compensate, for his efforts would increase his hunger. 

_I hope you're happy now, Zeboim!_ he growled. 

Suddenly, as if it was an answer, a noise was made right behind him. Ariakas grasped the hilt of his sword, cursing his carelessness for having let his guard down.

"Who is there?" he asked defiantly, in a commanding voice.

It was a turtle. A big, lazy, emerald turtle, that answered his request by crawling towards him with a strange smile in its grotesque mouth.

_So mocking, me, huh?_ was the first thing he managed to think. However, a moment later he had already had time to laugh at himself for that nonsense, for that turtle was evidently no deity, but a simple animal of the same species as the rest of sea turtles that lived in that zone. Probably it had been attracted by the fire, and would be excellent food once he had killed it.

"Come here!" he said with a grin, unsheathing a dagger and slowly getting up. Turtles were easy prey, since they could not run.

But, to his surprise, this turtle was different. As if she was really laughing at him and his tired state, she seemed to eye him attentively for some moments, and then fled at a prodigious speed, leaving a stunned Ariakas behind.

"Oh, you want to play!" he growled, while he felt the new frustration that made him forget the pain and weakness in his legs. Clenching his teeth determinedly, he began to run through the treacherous rocks, decided to kill the obnoxious turtle for food even if that meant throwing himself in the water and swimming after it. After all the things that had just happened to him, this was just too much.

"Oh, that.. that damned beast...But...what? In the name of Takhisis..."

He had been running for some minutes when, just in time, he stopped dead in his tracks and grasped the hilt of his sword. The accursed turtle had disappeared in a small crevasse between two damp rocks continuously attacked by the waves, though not before bringing him to a really strange place. Several edgy rocks were disposed in the shape of a semicircle in that small lonely  beach, which the Sea furiously tried to enter in vain, and the light of the full red moon fell over them like fresh blood, colouring water and rock ...and the skin of a woman.

Ariakas soon overcame his involuntary and shameful shudder, and he decided to face whatever danger could be waiting for him in that wild and damp space. Without thinking twice, he prepared some defensive spells, grasped the medallion of Takhisis and walked into the semicircle, to stand before the creature who was lying inside.

"Who are you?" he asked. She opened her eyes for a brief second, and smiled maliciously.

Ariakas had seen many a strange creature in his life, even including dragons and a powerful goddess, both of them things that the great majority of the population of Krynn deemed nothing more than creatures of fairy tales. This had turned him into someone not easy to surprise with wonders, but it was also true that he had never known much about the creatures of the Sea. His life had been spent inland, in unhealthy tunnels and terrible cities of fire and oppression, and this was the first time that he saw something like the woman that was lying there before him.

She was pale. Not pale like the lovely women of Solamnia, but pale as someone who has just survived a deadly illness. Blue veins covered her arms, her body, even her face, so thin that the cheeks seemed swollen and the eyes oversized, too open, disproportional. Her long greenish blue hair fell completely dishevelled over her naked body, entangled with several sea plants that smelled of putrefaction.

"I have asked _you _a question!" Ariakas repeated in a tone full of warning, just after swallowing to bring a strange knot in his throat down. As she remained silent once more, he unsheathed his sword, which only reflected the darkness of Nuitari after the Dark Queen's blessing, and pressed it to her throat. Just then it occurred to him that the peoples of the Sea were said to have the ability of changing shape, and that theoretically she could have escaped, but that only served to increase his uneasiness, and with it his ferocity.

"A sword..." she muttered, with a voice as deep as the raging gale...or maybe just hoarse. Her scintillating blue eyes scrutinised him for a brief moment, and then, without minding the blade at her throat, she extended a thin slimy arm and pointed at his medallion.

"Cleric***. Warrior." she said, as a child trying to pronounce strange words for the first time in her life. Immediately, she smiled and threw him a look of admiration. "You are high in her favour indeed."

"Who are you?" Ariakas repeated once more. "You are no Sea Elf. You are no strange being with a fishtail instead of legs, like those in the legends of the sailors."

"Take that thing away from me." was her answer. Suddenly, her eyes were gleaming dangerously. "And then I'll tell you."

"I'l take it away when I'm sure about you," he said. "and I'm not."

"Fool!" she hissed, grabbing the blade with her unprotected hand and pulling it away. Ariakas was not able to do anything against her move until it was too late, for he would never have expected her to try something like that, so, cursing in a strong voice, he retrieved it and saw it was all smeared with viscose green fluid, like the blood of dragons. Then he looked at her again: there was a look of pain and fury in her eyes as she cradled her hurt hand, but she still did not move.

" You survived a shipwreck, didn't you?" she asked after a few moments of silence. When he nodded in assent, she laughed, and her laugh made him shiver. He had heard it before.

"Takhisis protected me."

"No."

Ariakas was startled.

"What?"

"Takhisis did not protect you", she explained, looking at him with eyes wide open, of the colour of a thunderstorm.

Suddenly, Ariakas heard a soft noise behind them, and, as he turned his head, he saw it was the turtle again, this time crawling towards the woman. Gently, with slow motions, it crawled at her feet, and she began to caress the head of the animal. That image stunned him for some reason, perhaps because it resembled strongly a painting he had seen somewhere in the temple of Luerkhisis in Sanction.

And then, finally, it dawned upon him.

"Takhisis protected me!" he insisted, biting his lips to suppress the uncontrollable shivers that he did not want her to notice. "I worship no other deity."

"But," she objected, after a few moments of seemingly trying to put her sudden emotions of urge and frustration in order, "what if the deity worships _you?"_

Ariakas inhaled deeply, and wisely ceased pretending to prevent her from seeing what she was able to see anyway.

"Worship me?" he stammered, falling to his knees with a strange feeling of nausea overwhelming him. He tried to grasp the medallion once more, but Takhisis was strangely unresponsive. 

"I saw you first when you began your journey to the lands of Sargonnas", she went on. "You seemed to me handsome, strong and daring, and powerful among mortals. You were not afraid of the Sea, that brings terror even to the bravest of hearts, and, while a victim of the thunderstorm, you dared to defy me. I want to have you now, and I know she won't deny me that, even if your soul belongs to her and your heart to your own ambition. "

Ambition...

The full implications of what he had just heard swept over his mind like an intoxicating wave. He looked at her, and her hair suddenly seemed to gleam with the light of a hundred pearls. Her smile was sweet as the scent of blood, and her fragile naked body called to him with the lure of a desire as strong as the might of the tempest, whispering into his mind delightful songs of black power. He suddenly wanted to embrace that power, to taste it, to make it his.

 A power of thousands of years. A power of the unleashed currents and of the dark maelstrom where sailors were forever lost . A power of hate and destruction, a power of freedom and fury, the force of Nature among the gods of Evil, the seed of Takhisis and Sargonnas. She wanted him, and the feeling was so joyous as when he had come to know that Takhisis had chosen him over his father, and that she was going to help him to drive his dagger home in that other dark night, long ago. She wanted him as her consort, she, a goddess.

"Ambitious I am indeed" he muttered "and thus, I bow before you and you will have me. For your power can be my glory, Zeboim daughter of Takhisis."

The goddess embraced him and laughed, and her laughter now rang melodiously in his ears. Ariakas laughed too, burying his head in her arms to kiss her slippery skin, and then both rolled to the place where the turtle was watching them with an inscrutable smile.

Far away, but also very near, another voice, deeper and terrible, was laughing with them.

* * * * * * * * *

"Ariakan!" The voice had turned more insistent and strong, so much that it began to bother him seriously. With a deep sigh, he opened his eyes, to see a stern face looking down at him.

"I was addressing you."

"I think I heard something", Ariakan replied, shrugging his shoulders. The face became sterner. "But I had things to do."

"Speaking with your mother?" the knight of Solamnia ventured. His face was somewhat relaxed by a wry smile as his finger pointed to the calm waters, and Ariakan suppressed a sigh. 

He did not believe him. No one believed him, and he could not blame them for that. In fact, he had serious problems to find it plausible himself, and his doubts had been even increasing throughout long years of silence.

"I _was trying to concentrate, sir Thomas****", he said instead._

"Get up."

"She will drown you."

"Oh, really?" There was no sign of fear in the knight's eyes as he scrutinised the horizon in search of a decent wave. "You're reckless, by Kiri-Jolith!"

"And you're persistent, by Sargonnas!" Ariakan answered with a smile. Both were silent for a while, looking at the Sea for some moments more, and then the youngest of the two got up at last, shaking the sand from his clothes.

"You're behaving quite annoyingly since sir Gunthar decided that I was under your responsibility."

"But you know he would never have let you come with us otherwise", Thomas reminded him. "Now let's go. They have nearly finished packing, and lord Michael will be angry at _me _if we do not return " he grumbled.

Ariakan grinned back, and followed him. All thoughts, desires and wild ideas had to be left behind; they wouldn't bring anything else than harm upon him at large. His father had said yes, his reason had said no. And she, she hadn't said anything.

Suddenly, as he walked towards the encampment of Solamnic knights that held him captive since the end of the War of the Lance, something came to his mind. It was not the first time, but it did not happen often that his self control was cheated this way by those sinister thoughts that he had tried to keep hidden in the most secret place of his heart.

_...and Mirena fell to the stone floor with a painful cry. Her right hand went first, instinctively, to the place where the knife had pierced her lung, but she had not the strength anymore to take it away. Then, her eyes focused in the small form that was crying frightened next to her, and, with tears in her eyes, she embraced him protectively, as if her dying body could keep the dark shadow apart from her._

_"No! "she shouted, choking with her own blood. "He will never be yours! A child of Light...never a child of Darkness...never!"_

_Mockingly condescending, the black robed personage that had stabbed her pushed her aside without rudeness, and took the struggling child in his arms._

_"Mother!" the boy called, stretching his arms to her and redoubling his cries. "Mother!"_

_"Leave her now!_She cannot take care of you anymore"; the cleric laughed, throwing a quieting spell on him. "But I am your father, and I will. You will grow to be my pride, a sovereign of Darkness, and she will be forgotten soon. Come with me, my dear, my son, Duulket Ariakas.*****"_

(To be continued)

Notes:

*This happens in 332 post Cataclysm.

**"Light" in the language of magic. (see Brothers In Arms, by Weis and Perrin)

***Caught in the middle of a tangle of unexplainable contradictions about Ariakas´s clerical status, I´ve chosen to follow Niles´s statement that he was, since it seemed strange to me that he had the greater communication with the goddess in all Krynn without being a cleric.

****About the fact of Thomas and Ariakan being friends, see "Dragons of Summer Flame", by Weis and Hickman.

***** For Ariakas´s family story, see "Dragons of Spring Dawning", by Weis and Hickman.


	2. A Very Long Night

Disclaimer: Same as in the previous chapter and as in the whole book from now on.

Thanks to Margit as in the previous chapter and as in the whole book, too.

**Chapter Two: A Very Long Night.**

He had been born in Sanction. Nearly each time that some Knight learned about that, he was stared at with a mixture of horror and aversion, as if he was some draconian hatched from an egg in one of the vaults of the temple of Luerkhisis. But then, when he protested vehemently that it had not been his choice at all, the look changed into one of badly dissimulated pity, which he liked even less. 

Sanction. If the name of Neraka represented ancient perversity, nobody in Krynn would deny now that the name of that accursed city represented the new one. It had been there that the armies of Darkness had been slowly gathering before the war, under the wings of the mythical Dragons that had showed there for the first time answering the call of their Queen. There, a powerful and evil magic had corrupted the eggs of the Good Dragons, turning the new born ones into those perversions called draconians, and the terrible temple of Luerkhisis had stood among impending dark volcanoes that breathed fire all over the place. In fact, Sanction _was still the stronghold of Takhisis´s mortal minions now that the War of the Lance was lost, for the Armies of Whitestone had never been able to enter that hole where the Dragon Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar had quickly retreated with her remaining forces after the defeat in Neraka. The few that had been there as spies and had returned to tell about it talked in low voice about the terrible suffocating air, about the dark streets full of drunken goblins, ogres and draconians killing each other, and about the perversity of the temple and its unknown subterranean caves, closed and abandoned at the present time._

Ariakan suppressed a smile at the involuntary images, then sighed, stretching his limbs on the bed. As he very well remembered, those pits had not been abandoned in his own time, and he himself had lived in the temple during all his childhood, never having the chance to find "perversity" there by the contrast with those so-called purer zones he had never seen. Draconians did not frighten him, for they had surrounded him since he was born, and so did dragons, especially Tombfrye, the Red of his father. And he had always taken this for normal. 

However, he recalled that, as he had gradually opened to Thomas of Thelgaard, the young hero of the Lance, and had told him about his immunity to the devastating force of dragon fear, his companion had been very serious about the matter, and had insisted in bringing him to a Golden Dragon that was eating a deer in the courtyard of the Tower. Unfortunately for him, Ariakan thought with glee, his little experiment had turned wrong. He had wanted to see if the fear for dragons of Evil only affected the forces of Good, and vice versa, but Ariakan was immune to both. 

"Perhaps we will have to grow Knights in the caves of dragons." Sir Thomas had mumbled as they had left the suspicious Golden Dragon behind. 

"Am I supposed to be used for experimenting?" Ariakan had growled then, trying to hide his satisfaction. Thomas´s only answer had been to shrug his shoulders.

"I know", Ariakan had sighed.

Anyway, small anecdotes apart, he had to confess that the enigma of the dragon fear had never bothered him much. There had been far more important questions without answers in his life, there _were still, and the help he could have received to solve them was definitely lost. Some seemingly innocent questions turned to be worse than the claws of dragons, for once they had someone in their grasp they would never release him again, unless the victim had some powerful weapon that allowed him to tear himself away. And this from the very moment that some cursed being put him at their mercy._

Like that woman. Like she had put _him once, and was putting him still..._

Ariakan closed his eyes, resting his face on the pillow, and tried to remember once more. Her name had been Roselind, a Solamnic name indeed, though she was not from the legendary fatherland of the Knights. She had been born in one of the castles built by the Knighthood near Neraka long before the Catclysm, one of the few that had resisted the earthquakes, and, after it was destroyed and sacked by draconians, she alone was brought to Sanction alive by the very peregrine reason of his own recent birth. The draconians - the first of their kind, used for experimenting - or the kind of humans that fought alongside with them, not to speak about goblins or ogres, could not take care of a child, while that woman had given birth to her own son some time ago and could foster another one without too many problems. 

And so it had been. He had been used to see her next to him since he was a baby, always fretting about with an expression of perpetual sadness, or playing with her dirty robes while her honey eyes were fixed anywhere else with an insistent stare. Whenever a draconian entered the room, she went dead pale, and, when it was his father, she ran away to the adjoining chamber, never daring to reappear until she was sure he was gone. This tended to exasperate young Ariakan.

"But why cannot you act _normal ?" he used to ask her with a child´s uneasiness._

"I´m sorry, I...I will." she always answered, regaining her composure only to do exactly the same at the next opportunity.

But at night, when they were alone, she seemed to change. No draconian, human or dragon passed by them anymore, and she was able to relax and forget about the horrors that surrounded her. Then, he knew it was time to ask her for the song, for then she would sing it to him without getting stuck at the first words.

Roselind had been very, very afraid when she had been brought there for the first time. She did not know where her people could be, except for the ones she had seen killed by the deadly breath of that red dragon, and all she could see around her were horrible abominations that looked like human lizards peering at her with cruel smiles. They had led her through dark, frightful corridors to a locked room, and, as she had been shoved inside, she had seen a baby crying in a cradle. It was not her son, she had never seen him in her life, but, as she had told the draconians that, they had laughed and had told her that he would have to be for now, and that she´d better calm him if she wanted to stay alive. So she had taken him in her arms, trying to cajole him to no avail, since the child could no doubt sense her horror and continued crying. One of the monsters had begun to walk towards her, and then, suddenly, without even stopping to think about what she was doing, she had started to sing that song. It had made the draconians grimace at first, though, as it had succeeded in calming the child, they had finally left her in peace. 

This way, from utter desperation, was how she had found a way to do her task. That song had the ability of calming the baby, and, when he was older, he still wanted to hear it from her. But she only sang at night, and Ariakan knew that it was virtually impossible to force her to break that rule.

Until that day....

_"What does it say?" he asked her, instantly wondering how he had never thought about it. The last strange words died in her mouth, and she stared at him in silence._

_"I´ve asked you a question, what does it say?" he repeated. Roselind seemed reluctant at first, as if it was by day and they were not alone. It took very long before she opened her mouth to answer, and then, her voice was so low that Ariakan wondered if there really was someone spying on them._

_"I don´t know what the words do mean, my little one", she said. " They are in ancient Solamnic. My mother used to sing that song to me after she gave me birth; I bet she didn´t understand as well."_

_Ariakan opened his eyes, surprised. _

_"How did she do that?"_

_"What?" she asked, confused. Then, she thought she understood and breathed. "To sing in Solamnic? It´s the language of Solamnia, a great country that lies West from here. My forefathers..."_

_"_Mother_", he cut her impatiently. "You said she gave you birth; like Father and the clerics of Takhisis give birth to draconians." _

_Roselind´s eyes flew wide open at those words. At first, it seemed as if she was about to say something; then, the words were stuck in her throat again and she turned pale, to Ariakan´s annoyance._

_"No one is around ," he tried to bribe her. " No draconians, no Father. Tell me how she gave you birth. She was a cleric, wasn´t she?"_

_"No!" she cried. "She was a normal woman. Clerics disappeared from our world long ago, except...except here." A shiver crossed her body as she said that. "Every _human_ being", with this, even little Ariakan understood she was alluding to their difference to draconians, "every human being has a father and a mother that unite to give him birth. There is no other way to access existence than through a woman and a man. No other way."_

_Ariakan´s surprise was great on hearing those words. Unconsciously, he began to behold in his mind those scenes he had witnessed not long ago, in that mystic circle at the bloody shrine of Takhisis, and recalled their every detail. He saw his father, the other man and that old woman holding each other by the hand, the magical current between the three...and then, how his father and the man had begun to do strange things to the dragon eggs with the fungus while the woman, transfixed, had kept praying to Takhisis._

_"Who is my mother?" he asked, shaking his head as to drive all this away. But he couldn´t, not any longer._

_"I...I don´t know." Roselind answered, shivering again. "Perhaps she isn´t here anymore. Perhaps she gave birth to you and then...went away."_

_"But surely you must know her!" Ariakan insisted, stubbornly. "Weren´t you there when...when I was born?"_

_Roselind, however, could do nothing but shake her head."I wasn´t here at that time. Sorry, little one, I cannot help you any longer."_

Those, though he hadn´t known it at that time, were to be the last words that he had heard her pronounce in his life_. _

_Next day, she was completely silent, and then, more or less at dinnertime, Ariakas entered the room and she went away as she used to, resignedly watched by Ariakan, who had learned that it was impossible to try to hold her. Besides, he had found out by now that she was not the only one that was terrified of his father. More or less all the others who surrounded them cowered from him, even Tombfrye, who was at least ten times bigger than Ariakas and was able to breathe fire. After thinking for a long time, Ariakan had concluded that it should have something to do with his eyes when he was about to shout or kill someone, with how they glowed callously with the light of the shrine of the Queen of Dragons, and with how it gave him somewhat unearthly looks....but, apart from this, he was strong – or rather _very_ strong - and well built, with long black hair and a handsome face, and there was nothing wrong about him._

_"Good morning, son", he said. He was dressed in his black armour, and now he performed a brusque movement to pull it over his head. A cleric with long red hair that was behind him took it and discarded it on a chair. "You can go and have some prisoners for dinner now, Tombfrye", Ariakas told him with a movement of his hand. "Not the last spies, they have not spoken yet."_

_"I won´t touch those ones, my lord", the dragon assured with his hissing voice. Before Ariakan even had a chance to see his face, he was gone._

_"Hmmm..."Ariakas advanced towards his son. "So here you are. I haven´t seen you in three days. Are you faring well?"_

_"I am, Father." Ariakan answered, embracing him. It was so typical. Now he would ask him if he wanted or needed something, and then he´d leave again, for he was always very busy._

_But this time he would have to stop, at least for some minutes._

_"I want to ask a...a question." the young boy began, as if searching for words. His father turned his gaze towards him again, tearing it away from the door._

_"What question?" he asked._

_"Who is my mother?" _

He had let it fall all of a sudden, but then, he didn´t know why, he had not looked at his father´s countenance while he was saying it. Now that he was thinking about the whole thing again, Ariakan could not help wondering whether there had been a strange expression in Ariakas´ face the same moment he asked that.

Anyway, if there had been one, it had disappeared before he had even had the time to breathe once_._

_"Hearing stories, huh? Who told you about Zeboim?"_

_Ariakas put his son on the table and sat down in a chair. If all, he looked amused, and, when he saw surprise in Ariakan´s eyes, his amusement increased._

_"What? You ignore still who she is?"_

_"Zeboim..." the child repeated, as if hypnotised. He had not even heard his father´s other words. "Zeboim....Is she my mother? Who is she? And where is she? Have I ever seen her? Why isn´t she here now? I mean, she should..."_

_"Oh, shut up, by Takhisis! You will drive me mad! "Ariakas ordered, good-naturedly. " Ask only one question at each time. Zeboim is your mother. We got together and she gave you birth. Who is she? She´s the Lady of the Seas, a goddess of Darkness."_

_Ariakan had a hard time suppressing a cry, but he couldn´t help gasping._

_"Like...like Takhisis?" he stammered._

_"Takhisis is her mother." Ariakas explained. "She saw me once and she liked me. She was here for a while in the temple of Luerkhisis, but, after you were born, she left and she never returned." _

_"But, why?" the child asked, more a whisper than a coherent question. "Why did she leave?"_

_Ariakas shook his head, then sighed exasperatedly. Ariakan was worried when he saw something like a faint flicker of that dangerous gleam in his eyes, but it disappeared in an instant. _

_"Think, Ariakan! She´s a goddess. You have said it, like Takhisis. She´s a being who can take thousands of appearances, shapes and sizes. She is in a lot of places at the same time, and controls the might of the Sea. Can you imagine, just for a second, such a being _consenting_ to be trapped here?_

_The child nodded, surprised to find that he felt angry by some strange and unknown reason. He wanted to say...to ask... However, Ariakas got up, and he knew he wouldn´t have the chance._

_"She came as a mortal, and as a mortal you were born." the leader of the forces of Takhisis whispered, more to himself than to his audience. "And she stayed here until you did... as if someone...."_

_"As if someone...what?" Ariakan asked, forcing him to come back from the world of his thoughts. As he had feared, Ariakas seemed to notice again._

_"This is of no interest for you!" he grumbled. "You´re too young. Now bide me farewell, for I have to leave."_

_His son did as he was told, though mechanically, for he had enough in his mind to mull and fret for a very long while. When his father stopped in the threshold of the door, and asked him, as an afterthought, who had been the first to mention that, he shrugged his small shoulders, and told him._

_"Roselind sang a Solamnic song. She said she had learned it from her mother, and that she didn´t understand the words, and then I asked her what was that of mother. And then she explained the whole thing to me."_

That night, the woman hadn´t said a single word. Later, he had been able to remember the tears in her eyes while she had rocked herself in a corner, but he had been so worried about the goddess that apparently was his mother and that had left him that he hadn´t noticed it at the time.

The next morning, she was gone.

* * * * *

_"Sularus Humah durvey,  Karamnes Humah durvey..."_

Morning already, Ariakan realised with regret when he heard the voices of the Knights singing the song of Huma in the courtyard. The clear notes of the melody danced in the clean air of the morning, reaching his window, and he knew that, soon enough, somebody would knock at his door telling him to go down. He would have to be quick, to do what he had intended before this happened.

With quick motions, he got up from the bed where he had been lying. He had to suppress a faint shiver as he left the warmth of the sheets, but he ignored it and went to take a chair that was in a corner, shoving it away with one hand. His eyes were then left confronted with a bare wall that he began to touch until he felt it gave way.

"Come here!" he whispered as he introduced his hand in the hole and grabbed his knife. Like always, touching it was a pleasurable experience, and he concentrated himself on the thrilling feeling of dark power for a while.

It was his. The only thing he owned. When the Knights of Solamnia had taken him prisoner at the temple of Neraka, full of respect for that youngster who had killed five of them single-handed before they had got to him, they of course had taken all his weapons away. But there was one thing they hadn´t discovered then and that had remained with him until the present time, and it was the small knife he had hidden in his boot. He knew it wasn´t a powerful weapon by far, yet it was of the uttermost importance for him and his only remaining connection to the blackness where he had been born.

Ariakan pressed his hands against the blade, which had remained so sharp without help through the months and years, and closed his eyes. Other images were coming to his mind now in a powerful and vivid rush. He saw the old priestess of Takhisis with him in a dark corridor, her piercing black eyes reaching his soul and making him tremble as she described with a hissing voice how his father had killed his grandfather, and how the latter had murdered his wife, the mother of his son, while Ariakas was watching. He saw himself in that day when, being fifteen years old or so, in order to force his father to tell him the definite truth about the matter, he had succeeded in getting him drunk, a feat that nobody else had dared before. Ariakas could drink a lot of alcohol, including dwarven spirits, but he seemed to know when somebody was trying to manipulate him and never fell into the trap. This time, however, he had had to confront the cleverness of someone of his own blood. How ashamed and astounded he had been the following day, that he hadn´t even got angry at his little scheme!

The smile that had begun to appear in Ariakan´s countenance froze, and then, slowly, it disappeared. Pity it had all been for nothing! Ariakas had merely repeated what he already knew, adding a few details like their encounter in that lonely island at the Northern Sea, when the ship he had been sailing on had been wrecked and he had been the only survivor. But of the need for truth and certainty that his son had felt he never had been aware, not even when drunk.

That need his son had felt once.

_... unless the victim had some powerful weapon that allowed him to tear himself away..._

_Tear himself away. Before it was too late._

He had made his decision now, though never in his life had been anything harder for him. Surprisingly enough, though he had been forced to make a lot of sacrifices lately, that last thing still remained floating in a corner of his mind, distracting him and making everything still more difficult. It was annoying, useless, a waste of time. What couldn´t be known _couldn´t_ be known, and, damn! - His father had been right in refusing to have a "serious" talk about it with him. For, after all, would he have been able to prove anything? A mind that needed an absolute truth would have trusted nothing.

And so he had done.

"I was for years thinking about this", he whispered, or prayed, half to himself, half to a goddess...which one, he was not too sure. "I repeated with childish insistence to anybody who wanted to hear me that I was Zeboim´s son, while, no matter what I heard, I couldn´t believe it. When I came here, delusions of greatness were all that remained to me, and so I had to think I was no simple mortal; but I know too well that, be I who I am, I am forsaken, and my brains and my endurance is all that remains to me only if I use them _fully._ I have other things to care for right now, and you as well as my pride, as I bitterly learned, won´t help me in the least."

As he was saying those words, he suddenly felt the dark sensation of power in his hands increasing. Several drops of blood fell down and stained the white sheet, and, suddenly, he became aware of his hands grasping the blade without protection for the first time.

_Immune to fear. Immune to pain, somebody had said._

Wasn´t it, in truth, that he did not care?

A pair of loud knocks resounded from the other side of the door.

* * * * * 

"With the _razor?" A very amused Thomas allowed his mouth to be distorted in a snicker, something that happened very rarely to so serious a young Knight. "Ariakan, you´re crazy! If somebody knew about it, your reputation as a swordsman would be completely ruined!"_

"Oh, well, say what you want!" Ariakan grumbled, removing his glove again and staring with seeming surprise at the deep cuts. "I am sure, nay, _certain, _that you´ve had the same problem at some moment of your life. In fact, I never realised how easy it was to take it by the wrong end when you´re half asleep!"

"Then let´s pray to Paladine that you don´t take a sword when you´re half asleep!" Thomas exclaimed, as he threw his shield on a chair. Both young men had finally left the field of practices, where they had been sparring all morning while older Knights had been looking at them with hidden admiration. None of those who watched them was going to abase himself proving his skills against a mere youngster, even if he was a Knight of the Rose, and, as for Ariakan, he wasn´t even a Knight, but a prisoner who was graciously allowed to practice with a sword without an edge. The truth was, of course, that they were the best swordsmen in the whole Tower, and that their young age covered their long experience. Nobody wanted to risk an humiliating defeat facing any of them, at least none that Ariakan knew.

"Perhaps, if you grew a respectable moustache like we Knights, you wouldn´t have those problems", the Knight added as an afterthought. Ariakan, who was in that moment trying to count the number of doors between the courtyard and the armoury, stared blankly at him, and then laughed.

"Not in my life! In my opinion, you all look _ridiculous_. No wonder your enemies laughed at you."

"You did?" Thomas asked, a little offended. Ariakas´s son watched with amusement how his companion began to touch it unconsciously.

"I _do." _he answered, and turned away.

"Ariakan!" The Solamnic went behind him, pushing somebody who had crossed his way. "We haven´t finished the conversation yet!"

Two eyebrows arched at the same time.

"What conversation?"

"I know what happened to you. But you haven´t explained to me yet _why_ it happened."

Ariakan sighed with exasperation.

"I told you, I was..."

"Half asleep?" his companion finished for him. "Oh, yes, it´s evident. You have dark circles around your eyes, and I defeated you soon enough. You are _not_ well this morning, and that´s what I try to make you confess."

"On the contrary, I´m fine", Ariakas´s son replied curtly. All of a sudden, his black eyes seemed to acquire a deeper hue, as if he was meditating, planning, or perhaps trying to block an unseen attack. "And do not boast of your incredible luck this morning."

"Boast! I never boast!" Thomas shouted, though his anger was short-lived. "Go to your room and take a rest. I will be responsible for you again."

"I´m really thankful and surprised for the interest of an important Knight of Solamnia in my welfare." Ariakan began carefully, turning around to face him. As a result of his movement, sunrays fell over his braids, showing them in all their rich black splendour. "And I´m thrilled at the thought of you guarding my door with sword and shield, prepared to die a horrible death if the Lady of the Seas decided to come for me, but you are decidedly exaggerating. I had a sleepless night, that´s all. Or will you pretend now to make me sleep as you want to, as well?"

"The Lady of the Seas!" The Knight shook his head and grumbled, purposefully ignoring the last remark. "If I could pray to the gods of Darkness, I would ask her to come here and try to knock some reason into your head. Lord Gunthar may want to speak with you soon, Ariakan."

"I´m aware of that, thank you. " 

The youngest of the two stayed immobile on the threshold of the door long after he had whispered those words. Then, suddenly, to Thomas´s surprise, he took him by his right arm.

"Do you think I´m progressing, Thomas?" he blurted out, with a strange and indefinable mixture of hope and worry in his eyes. Gone was now in a single moment the arrogant mask he used to show in every moment of the day, and the change was so brusque and astounding that even the severe Knight of Solamnia hesitated and stopped to search for the words he was going to answer.

"Er...well... Something is indeed true, and it´s that you´re not the fierce, uncooperative blockhead that you were when you were brought here", he started after a few "ahems", visibly incommoded. "Everybody would speak for you and for your desire to adapt yourself to our ways. Though it´s also true that you persist in some... dark customs."The Knight sighed, breathing heavily as he set his eyes on Ariakan´s waiting stance. "I wouldn´t mind your tendency to swear by sinister gods, or your refusal to have anything to do with clerics or any place or object consecrated to Paladine or Mishakal. After all, if the War of the Lance taught us something, it was that there has to be some kind of balance in this world. But that obsession with praising and remembering with fondness that horrible...place where you lived, those corrupted beings that surrounded you! For us Solamnics at least, you know that there is no pride, no honour, in trying to destroy the land and enslave the weak with fire and terror, and unless you realise that, Lord Gunthar and the others will never set you free. Nor will your continuous claim of being the son of the Dragon Highlord Ariakas and the dark Lady of the Seas be of any help with that matter."

"Do you think so?"

Ariakan had listened carefully to the long rant, nodding his head. As he saw the young knight was finished, his eyes acquired some expression again.

"Yes, Ariakan. I think so."

"Do you believe then" he insisted, "that it is possible for a man, not only to change himself, but also to change his birth, his past, as if they had never existed? That I could suddenly deny everything and become one of you?"

Thomas studied the prisoner closely, to search for the typical signs of sarcasm written over his face. He did not see them, though neither did he see anything that could tell him that Ariakan was speaking seriously. The face he was confronted with was...well, strange.

"You do not have to deny your origins. Just scorn the teachings you received, and learn from us. You know very well that we´re eager to teach you. And, oh, Ariakan...could you stop that story about your mother? Right, maybe your father told you that..." He shrugged his shoulders to prove what he thought about Ariakas and his truths "but no cleric has been able until now to see any divine essence in you. You have cold, you bleed, as the cut in your hand shows right now, and you are tired. You´re strong, but you´re not invincible. Perhaps your father, erm.. shared his bed with another woman...?"

"Oh, with plenty of them. "Ariakan interrupted him with a snicker. "Of all kinds. But they would never had lived long enough to bear a child."

Thomas´s deep shock, badly dissimulated, increased his amusement.

"By the gods! I´m not my father, one more time!" he cried. "Now, continue."

"I...I was saying", Thomas continued after regaining his composure ", that I like you, Ariakan, in spite of the darkness in which you lived, of the darkness that _is inside you and that you fight continuously. I like you, yes, and nothing would bring me more relief than to see you free, both from it and from the prison you´re kept in here, in the Tower. I´ve spoken many times with Lord Gunthar, and, oh, Ariakan, if you only _knew_ how much that issue of your parentage complicates the things! Not because of Ariakas, since Kitiara would not give a damn for the son of her rival, but for Ze...for that goddess of the Seas. And there is not even a single piece of evidence about it!"_

Prepared to receive a murderous glare from his companion, ready to watch him go away, Thomas let go off a sigh and shook his head. It was cruel, what he had had to say, but Paladine knew it was only for the good. And he was sincere, for he really wanted the best for that man about three years younger than himself. He had always felt touched by his inner strength during his captivity, by the endurance that allowed him to be a prisoner of his deadly foes without letting go of his pride and his personality, and also by his evident efforts to change and to become better than he had been, through ways that could never be of his liking. However, this time he had been told to renounce to his greatest pride, his ancestry, and that was something he would never accept. Thomas was sadly certain about this, and also that it would bring his friend problems. 

"Sir Knight, I have to ask you a question about the Measure." Ariakan asked then, interrupting his thoughts.

"What?" The thing had taken him absolutely at unawares this time. He had to wait a moment, until he was sure he had heard correctly. "Yes?"

"No Knight is allowed to question publicly the veracity of a direct statement of his commander in chief. If the disagreement is a very important one, the issue should be discussed in private. It´s the point number 103 of the Measure, am I wrong?" 

"No." Sir Thomas answered, surprised. Where was he trying to arrive?

"I see I´m learning. Well..."Ariakan smiled a regained clever smile, "it turns out that Ariakas was my commander. He died, so I owe him respect until the hour of my death even if he hadn´t been my father. And it turns out also that he, and no other, was the one who told me about my mother. So, would I question him publicly? It would go against the Measure if I ever wished to be called son of anybody else than the woman, the goddess, that he had called my mother. If Lord Gunthar asks me personally instead of asking _you" , _the guilty look in Thomas´s countenance was evident, " that´s what he will be told. He will have to understand, won´t he?"

This time, when he turned away, the prisoner was not followed. Thomas of Thelgaard stayed behind, and, as he watched him disappear down the corridor, a sad smile appeared on his face.

"Young clever bastard." he muttered to himself.

(To be continued)


	3. An Old Wound

Disclaimer: The world of Krynn belongs to Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.

Beta reading belongs to Margit, and writing to me. 

**Chapter Three: An Old Wound.**

Time passed away after the storm, slowly but steadily, as it always had been. The dance of the seasons left the few trees that grew inside the Tower bare and leafless in autumn, and restored their exuberance with the arrival of the warm spring weather. Singing birds went away to return once more and sing on their heavy branches, while the Knights of Solamnia, the members of the renewed and restored Order, gradually began to fall asleep over their crowns of victory. 

They were now prosperous. Consideration for them and their efforts had increased nearly as much as in Huma's time, and they were hailed as heroes in the greatest part of Ansalon for the role they had played in the War of the Lance. All the important cities had a garrison of Knights protecting the security of their citizens, when only two years ago they had been despised everywhere for the old political and economical power that had made them insensitive to the sufferings of the people at the Cataclysm. For this and for having been known as the guardians of the Kingpriest's "peace" in the long years of fanatism and intolerance, the Solamnics had been mistreated by the revengeful populace until practically some days ago, until they had proven that they were no longer the symbol of oppression they had once represented.

And this, for what? To fall once more, of course, in the same self-complacency at the first appearance of truce, the young Knight thought bitterly as he looked through the window and saw another sumptuous entourage of a nobleman making their solemn entrance to the Tower. _Fools! All those years of shame and persecution, the final devastating experience of that unexpected and terrible war, what had they taught them?_

_The same that Huma's sacrifice taught them so long ago,_ he answered himself full of bitterness, almost at once.

They never would change. That was their fate, as it was of any other being in Krynn: to grow wise when at need and foolish when powerful. Right now they were preparing a celebration, - the Second Anniversary of the End of the War, of all things -, inviting old heroes to pronounce long emotive speeches of past feats while the most powerful people of Krynn would be displaying their magnificence in the halls. And this instead of relying on the valiant people of all races that had fought the Dragonarmies alongside with them, to get sure that no calamity of the sort would befall the world again! Of undertaking efforts to solve the ancient rivalries, envies and injustices that had caused everything to pass in the first place, and that they were helping to preserve as if nothing had happened at all!

Thomas shrugged his shoulders violently, and thought only belatedly that his gestures could be interpreted as those of a lunatic by anyone who chanced to watch his demeanour. But, what? That's what he felt like, precisely, after having had to endure two weeks of lavish festive preparations. He had always been proud of his common sense, as the noble-peasant that he had been since his grandfather and his family had been thrown out from Thelgaard by the lies of false clerics, and then forced to work on the very fields that had once belonged to them or to die of cold and hunger in the harsh plains of Solamnia. Daily fights to preserve the crops and escape starvation had been his first and only war for a long time, but they had been so terrible that, later, when confronted with true enemies, he hadn't feared them as the others had. And that was what allowed him to understand, what made him so shrewd at this particular case.

"_Ally yourself to the high ones that never knew fear, and, when the enemy destroys the small worlds where they reign, they will leave you and run away shrieking."_

That was indeed what had happened to those clerics. When the Dragonarmies had attacked Thelgaard, they had fled immediately with their things, and Thomas had been left to organise the resistance in the castle of his ancestors, winning back their name and a reputation for bravery surprisingly untainted by the faintest sign of rashness. Nobody had opposed his investment as Knight of the Rose after that feat, of course, or his claims to his old heritage and the lands of Thelgaard. But, still, in spite of all those praises and honours, it seemed sometimes that he was deemed still too young to have consistent ideas about certain matters. They called him idealistic, old-fashioned, or simply admired his speech and then forgot on the spot what he had just said, each one of them for his own reasons but all behaving the same. 

There was Markham of the Rose, he thought, the commander of the Palanthas garrison, that annoying flippant noble that saw war as a game and was unable to take anything seriously. There was lord Michael, with his theory of "things can return now to their normal course", a phrase that meant that everything they had conquered with their suffering, the alliance between the peoples, should be thrown away because it was not useful anymore. There were also the young Knights of the Crown, that supported him, though just as a potential way of opposing those others, following an old tradition of discontentment in the heart of the Order that was as dangerous as all other things could ever be. And then, finally, there was lord Gunthar Uth Wistan, the head of the Solamnic Order. He was an excellent man, Thomas would never deny that, but his efforts were not sufficient. He might have rank, he might have prevailed over all those conspirations and intrigues that had been so frequent in the so-called "old" times, and he might even, more or less, in his inner thoughts share some of Thomas's worries, but he was also trapped and constrained by his position, and, besides, he was not too young anymore.

The Knight got up again from the seat where he had ordered his body to sit down, and shook his head. As things were, he told himself, it was something like a macabre irony that _Ariakan, of all people, was the only one who was of complete like mind with him when it come to this issue. A prisoner, an enemy that had fought in those dark armies of chaotic and egotistic creatures turned out to be the only person in this place who would look into his eyes and say he understood those feelings of his, and, even though the change that had taken place on him was an astounding one, this was still somewhat shocking._

Or maybe not?

A little smile warmed Thomas's face for a moment, and he felt able at last to sit down without much resistance from the part of his nervous limbs. As he thought about his friend, the reminder of his success always placated him to some extent, and even augmented his hopes of being listened seriously one day by those who considered him too young or "idealistic" for sound judgement. In Ariakan, they had got the opportunity of seeing for themselves, hadn't they? They welcomed him more or less with open arms now, and saw with admiration the self-discipline and the strength of will with which he had gradually been turning from what he had been before to what he had become. But still, at the same time, they had also to remember that, without him, without Thomas of Thelgaard, they would have killed him two years ago, as sure as the grass was growing now green and bright in the plains of Solamnia. Nobody could be so forgetful as to be unable to remember those events vividly, even if they did not actually _see_ them in their mind's eye as he saw them himself, in defiance of the two whole years that divided now those tumultuous days from this placid spring festival....

* * * * * * * * *

_"Who is that?"_

_Thomas had not been invested yet. There wasn't time for such things as ceremonies in a world that was on the brink of being lost, and he himself was not sure he would live to see the day if it finally arrived. Yet, as lord Gunthar knew very well about his valour and his strength, he had been allowed to go with the others to the temple of Neraka, after that strange crazy old man succeeded into convincing the head of the Order that the might of Takhisis was crumbling while he talked._

_And, surprisingly enough, he had been right._

_"They will die if they don't go out soon!" someone shouted into the roaring noise, pointing in awe at how the sinister building where Takhisis had held her last audience was beginning to move dangerously to one side in a tempest of cracks and falling stones. Draconians still passed by them, but they were fewer at each moment and they did not have any desire of fighting anymore, just of running away and saving their lives._

_"Who is that?" Thomas repeated, with a louder voice. An old Knight turned his face to his._

_"They are the eastern battalion. I recognise some of them", he shouted. "Look, they are slowing down because of the corpses!"_

_"Fools!" Thomas exclaimed, without caring at all for the shocked looks he received. "They should care about their own lives before..."_

_A growl interrupted him, and made all turn to the other side. At the western gate, another group of Knights were trying to emerge from the sea of creatures that were still leaving the place, fighting for survival. The sky was ominously dark and seemed to be about to fall onto their heads at any moment, so their armours only glowed with a faint and sinister light from afar._

_"They're the last ones!" someone cried with relief. "Now, let's go!"_

_The dragons flapped their wings impatiently in response, a sign that they really saw danger imminent. But the disciplined Knights repressed their urge to call them and gave them a signal, to wait until both groups had arrived on the plain._

_"What is the news?" Thomas asked to the west ones, that had come quicker. "Did you find...?"_

_"She...she's gone." The chief of the battalion whispered, livid. "We... we tried our best, but those...those...the Dead Knights. .They were like Death themselves!."_

_Thomas and his commander gathered from his words, with some effort, that Kitiara Uth Matar had been able to escape, and that Lord Soth had protected her. His Knights had attacked them and killed some of the men so the Dark Lady could ride her dragon and escape from the fated place, yet they had at least the consolation that she did not have too many followers anymore._

_"And you?"_

_"Ariakas is dead", said the provisional substitute of the dead commander of the east battalion, shrugging his shoulders. "It appears he had been killed even before we arrived. It was whispered that...Tanis Half-Elven did it."_

_"And his followers?"_

The rumble increased by moments, and the Knights began to look frantically for their dragons and horses without tarrying anymore. Thomas, however, stayed in place, next to his own commander, and waited to hear the tidings their exhausted companion had brought. He was tired himself after fighting the troops of the Dragon Highlords and searching for Lauralanthalasa for what had seemed an eternity of time, until his commander had decided they had done all they had could and that it was time to look for their own lives. Worse still than tired, he was on the brink of forgetting about all and lying on the ground forever, but he had to listen to his companions and avoid falling into the deadly traps of inexperience.

_"We defeated some factions. Others escaped by secret paths, or so I do believe" the man said with a bitter tone. "A great part of them was concentrated in one subterranean, and there we fought for a long time. Until it really started to crumble, they did not think about escaping, even if we doubled them in number and they... had lost their Highlord. But, strange as it may seem, they were guarding someone."_

_It wasn't until then that, as if pointed by one of the man's darting glances, Thomas turned his head to one side and saw him for the first time. He was unconscious, hanging over the shoulders of a tall Knight with sombre looks as if he was dead. There was blood all over his body, hands and face, but his lips and his surprisingly young features were still tense with determination, and his rigid right hand grasped a dark sword with the symbol of the Queen of Dragons. _

_"He was alone in a room, behind all those draconians", the Solamnic captain continued. "At first, we thought he was some kind of important prisoner, but he was an enemy without a shadow of doubt, and a very stubborn one. Don't ask me who he is, but he fought us alone, and, what may sound more unbelievable, he killed five of us! Fortunately, a stone that fell from the ceiling left him unconscious, and we could get to him in the end. The Measure forbids to kill unconscious people, but as soon as he gets well he faces certain death, I daresay."_

_Astounded at what he had just heard, Thomas saw the eyes of his commander widening by the effect of surprise. Both turned again at the same time to stare at the prisoner, who, as if he really had noticed it, stirred in his sleep and groaned._

Five! But...but he's a youngster! He's younger than me! _was the first thing that crossed Thomas's confused mind as he did so. But then, a voice inside him reminded him that  he shouldn't question the statement of another Knight, especially if a superior. He just **couldn't be lying.**_

_From the sword that the young man was holding in his unconscious hand another drop of blood dripped to the ground._

_"But now he will have to face a trial ", his own commander interrupted. "And there will not be a lot of time for that, of this I'm certain. Thomas!"_

_"My lord."_

_"Take care of him. We're leaving."_

_"Yes, my lord."_

_And so it had come to happen that, not a Knight yet, and without knowing too well what he was supposed to do with him, Thomas suddenly found himself with the unconscious body of an enemy in his hands. Sighing and shaking his head, he put him across his shoulders in the less incommoding way, searched for the dragon he shared with another Knight, and carried him there, marvelling at the coldness of his body._

_* * * * *_

_It took more than a couple of days for the young prisoner to recover. If it had been the head wound alone, he would have got off sooner, but there were also the multiple reminders of the fierce battle he had fought against the Knights at the limit of his forces. Thomas, taking to heart the order that his commander had given him at the ruins of Neraka, had been always around to care for his recovery, adding this to the list of his already multiple tasks and things to care about. Sometimes, when he saw himself and the healers fretting around him, the future Knight wondered why they were taking so much trouble to look after someone who was going to die, but he nonetheless did his best to ignore those thoughts as if they were out of place, and stayed every night to look after him._

_He fascinated him, in truth. Anybody could object that he of all Knights was the very last one supposed to be subject to sentimentalities, but this was not sentimental or, he was really sure of it, objectionable. Thomas had felt impressed since he had heard the story from the lips of that other Knight, and had felt for the prisoner the respect that was due for brave actions, as he had been taught as a child. He had often found himself trying to imagine how the scene could have been like, wondering how that lad could have managed to stand all alone against a whole battalion and fight with skill and strength until the stone had fallen upon his head, and he wished that he would talk to him more than a few words and a couple of growls. If he had been a Knight of Solamnia, he would have been sung and celebrated like Thomas himself was for his feats at his homeland, or perhaps even more, since Thomas had never been properly alone._

_But he was the enemy._

_The young man breathed heavily and turned towards him, mumbling some words in his sleep. As every time he did that, the Solamnic tried hard to decipher what he was saying, and caught something like "Kitiara" and "the crown". More enigmas still! The few times he had been awake during his illness, and the few times he had consented to utter a word since his recovery, Thomas had tried to ask him who he was and what he had been doing at the subterranean, but the only answers had been vicious frowns and stubborn silences that just augmented the curiosity of his caretaker. If he only could make him think, be reasonable...! He had the distinct sensation that there was something important and crucial for him to discover from that good-looking and brave young man, and that perhaps would throw a new light over the conspirations of the Highlords and the cause of their defeat, a thing of which Tanis Half-Elven, the Golden General and their friends had not been very talkative. Besides, he was nearly sure that he had been a prisoner of Ariakas, like the commander had supposed, for, otherwise, what would he have been doing in a subterranean chamber and guarded by so many draconians?_

_Perhaps he had been Kitiara's captain. Or Kitiara's lover. Or both. Or, perhaps, even..._

_"Will you cease staring at me?"_

_Hearing his heart jump at the sudden interruption, Thomas struggled to regain his serious composure after his abrupt return to reality. The prisoner, fully awake, was watching him attentively with his deep black eyes, and as always, the would-be Knight's own ones flared open as he saw him. He looked so fair, so...aristocratic! His stance was that of a born Knight, though at the same time there was something mysterious hidden in his handsome features like a dark secret, and Thomas could not quite locate where it was, nor what it might be. Perhaps it was his very long raven hair, so dark it even gave the strange impression of being blue at some sides...or perhaps his high aquiline nose, that suggested a sea hawk searching for prey. Or the intelligent eyes, and the strong lips curved in an defiant grin, as if he knew exactly in what situation he was but did not allow that to bring him down. The very fact that, once awake, washed, healed and in possession of his faculties, that youngster hadn't looked to his eyes like an average Dragon soldier was still somewhat difficult to grasp, and Thomas had the opportunity of confirming it once more._

_"I was watching your sleep", he answered, recollecting his thoughts. It was better to try being friendly for once, he told himself, even if his good intentions had proved before to be of exactly the same significance for the prisoner as his severity._

_"I do not need anybody to watch my sleep."_

_"Or to heal your wounds?" The Knight was quick._

_"To kill me afterwards", the youngster retorted, quicker still. A sudden flash of pain appeared and disappeared from his countenance. "I'll ask you once more, why didn't you allow me to die where and when I wanted to die?"_

_"I suppose I will have to present you my excuses." Thomas growled, mostly to suppress a strange feeling of pity that he did not wholly understand. After all, whose fault was it? He had fought the Solamnics to death and had been made a prisoner. Besides, of all people that Thomas had known and that were now dead, not one had died like he had wanted. "Though it will be a bit difficult, since you don't want to tell me your name."_

_The prisoner made a grimace, then shook his head. "Why are you so interested in knowing my name, if I'm not interested in knowing yours, Solamnic?"_

_"I may be old-fashioned, but I cannot get used to have a conversation with someone called "you" ", the would-be Knight replied, sounding now rather harsh "And I want to have it as soon as possible, at least as a reparation for all the days I've been taking the trouble of caring for your health."_

_"I am a prisoner. You are obeying orders, and I do not owe you anything."_

_This, Thomas had to admit it, was completely right. Yet..._

I do not owe you anything. That phrase...

_"Did you ever consider owing anything to anyone?"_

_"What?" The prisoner arched his eyebrows, surprised at the question._

_"You said you didn't owe me anything. Yet this also means that you _could_ have owed me something if the circumstances had been different."_

_"Well, if you had allowed me to die in peace I would have owed you something, that's for certain", was the young man's exasperated reply. "But it's most likely that you would never have known of my gratitude. "_

_The Solamnic clenched his teeth and sighed, a deep, long sigh._

_"Do you always have to make it so difficult?_

_"Do you always expect me to make it easy for you?"_

_"Any help would be greatly appreciated", Thomas said, beginning at last to pace around with an angry expression. "If you haven't discovered it already, **I am just trying to make things easier for **you**, while you aren't making things easier for me. You seem to think that it's my fault that you were in the Dragonarmy, that the temple of Neraka fell, that your lord was killed and that you were captured unconscious and taken prisoner, and it ****isn't! You chose it the same day you decided to get into that war for whatever motivation, and I would have said the same if the situation had been inverse for both of us, since I knew I was risking everything I had and could ever have."**_

_Turning towards the young Dragon soldier, the future Knight crossed his arms, corroborating what he had just said, or rather shouted, with a severe glance. To his surprise and annoyance, however, he could see that the youngster was not only completely unaffected by his words, but that he even seemed to show some kind of agreement at them. His shame for his outburst began to grow when he saw the absent nod of acknowledgement, and he had to swear in a low voice. Perhaps that prisoner wasn't acting very "Solamnic", but there was no doubt he was being able to control his emotions better, curse him!_

_Though, in fact, why was _**he**_ getting upset? Was it his business or lord Gunthar's?_

_The answer came nearly alone to his mind. It was his scrutiny, his test, his try. He was so sure there was something more in there..._

_"This been said, I must add something that you already know, and it's that if you told me who you are, things could change substantially", he muttered in a hoarse tone, decided to try that other thing once more. "If you really were a prisoner, as it's thought, things would be different for you, and if you repented about whatever made you decide to be there and consented to help us, you would be surely allowed to live. The Knights are not cruel."_

_Only a haughty silence welcomed his words. For Thomas, it felt as if he had pronounced a deadly curse instead of a question, and he remembered that the other time it had been the same. He had already refused to answer that before...._

_Though this time, after some thinking, the prisoner exceptionally seemed to change his mind about his silence._

_"You must be mocking me", he said, as fury began slowly to light his features in a blaze."This time as well as the last, but back then I refused even to answer that question, believing in earnest that you would interpret my silence the right way. Know, Solamnic, that I will only sell my life with a sword in my hand."_

_Thomas looked at him, with sudden and sincere astonishment. He could not believe what he had just heard. And still, the young man was there in front of him, looking into his eyes with a steely, adamant gaze that mirrored nothing except absolute contempt for the proposition. A Solamnic would not have acted otherwise, but a... a minion of Takhisis? What reason would he possibly have to..._

_Deep inside his heart, he had to accept that this had made his respect for him increase even more._

_"You said I was blaming you for what happened by my fault alone", the young man continued, the first time he spoke so much since Thomas had known him. "It's not true. I'm merely trying to be left to my fate in peace! Of course I do not want to die, yet it's far more bearable than to live licking the boots of the despicable servants of Paladine, of helping my captors, of using **my **skills to serve their purposes and say nasty things about the father and the mother that gave me birth, the city where I grew up or the armies I conducted. I would never...."_

_"A very Solamnic notion!" Thomas suddenly interrupted him._

_"What?" _

_The Solamnic snickered inwardly at the sudden look of hate and confusion the prisoner offered. At last he was getting to the point, finally he was upsetting him and getting something out of his impenetrable mask._

_"Est Sularis oth Mithas; my honour is my life. Our Oath since the times of Vinas Solamnus. Did you know? Or were you so sure of yourself that you ignored the basic information about your enemies?"_

_"As much as you ignored us" the young man answered, rather defensively from Thomas's point of view. Oh, good, that strange anxiousness was a good sign. "My father knew you well, yet he didn't believe your waning Order would turn into a threat until you got those Dragonlances and the help of the metal dragons. And then, it was Highlord Kitiara Uth Matar who found herself in direct confrontation with you. We were preparing ourselves somewhere else and keeping our conquered territories, so I saw few of your Order until that day. I did not know a thing about your stupid code, but to the five companions of yours I killed it did not turn to be too efficient, I daresay."_

_"Perhaps it would have been for your commanders, hm?" Thomas replied, sitting on the edge of the bed where the prisoner had done the same. As a good Solamnic, he felt called to defend the pillar of his Order in any circumstance. "_Or perhaps **for your Queen**?_ Let's remember, from what I have heard...Ariakas was killed by some conspiration... all the others began to fight over his crown, and, while everybody was killing everybody, a necromancer in the service of Takhisis did a spell that closed I don't know what gate and expelled her from the world. A nice work of harmony and concordance. You succeeded, joining your forces, in defeating yourselves!"_

_A loud cracking noise interrupted the future Knight. As he looked up, worried, he saw that the prisoner had turned his back to him, and was looking away now, as if wishing to hide something. So great was the tension in his muscles that Thomas had to be certain of at least one thing; that he had been the one to drive it home at last, be it for good or for bad._

_"What is the matter? Can't you bear the thought that your defeat was not merely a question of luck?" he continued taunting him, putting his hand distractedly over the hilt of his sword. "There were about a hundred draconians around you and they left you alone when they saw they were outnumbered. I had about thirty brave men around me when Thelgaard was attacked, and the enemy was about ten times our number, but nobody fled and we won. Never say that "our stupid code" did not turn to be efficient for us, for it was the key of our victory. You may be a better warrior, you may kill five of us, but other five will come, and then other five, while all your so-called allies will have fled, making true that of "Evil turns against itself" , wise saying of..."_

_"Stop! Now!"_

_The words died instantly in the throat of the Solamnic, and he turned to eye the youngster warily. Now, where had that amazing display of authority come from? Did he think seriously he could give **him** orders?_

_Yet, he had shut up._

_"Yes? Do you want to...say something?"_

_"Get out."_

_"What?" he hissed, incredulously. That was too much. "Are you joking?"_

_"Get out." the prisoner repeated, now sitting on the bed again and wiping his sweating face with both hands. After he had said it, though, he seemed to regain a faint remembrance of where he was, and his voice softened to take a strange tinge of desperation. "Please."_

_"Oh, right." Thomas got up with a preoccupied sigh. He had not imagined he was going to upset him **that** much, but still he had no idea if it would be good or bad. "I'll send for the healers again, you're not feeling well."_

_"No!" the prisoner protested. "My wounds are more than healed! I just want to be alone, for I'm tired...and drowsy. Don't let anybody enter here, they would only make my head spin."_

_"Well, if you really feel like that, I will do as you want", Thomas calmed him, heading for the door. Before he left, though, he turned around one more time, and saw those deep black eyes still staring at him. "And you can trust a Knight of Solamnia, Dragon soldier!"_

_"I know", he heard behind him, and then lower, in a hissing tone: "Takhisis help me, I know."_

_Though Thomas did not know it at that time, he had opened an old wound in the young man that would not be closed easily. Later, with the months and the years, he had finally come to think that he knew all about his friend's past anxiousness, but, in fact, there was something that still made him feel uneasy whenever he talked to him. It was a thing that was never mentioned until it became an old remembrance and a shadow of a pain, the long past knowledge of a young soldier full of pride that had refused to prevent the fall of his army while maybe having the gift of knowing what was wrong. _

_* * * * *_

Few days later, the prisoner had told him his name at last. Thomas was the first in the whole Tower to know that they had captured Ariakan, son of Ariakas and a former high ranked commander of his father's army in spite of his age, and he was also the first to hear the amazing confession of his mother being a goddess. The rest was well known. Another few days later still, when the aspirant had been invested at last as Knight of the Rose, he had been allowed by his title to stand for Ariakan in the trial that took place, and he had claimed that right with the approval of the new indisputable head of the Order, Lord Gunthar. He did his task seriously and honestly, telling the judges in all detail everything he had spoken about with the prisoner and how he had gradually convinced him to cease acting defiantly and listen to reason. He flew in a flash of eloquence defending him for having killed the five knights in battle and as self-defence, even daring to praise his bravery and his consequence for being loyal until the last moment and for facing a whole battalion alone. And, in the end, while he was still somewhat perplexed with the very words he had just pronounced, he finished it by reminding them of the more practical aspects of his lineage...especially how useful he could be for them if he stayed alive and wanted to cooperate, something he himself was ready to be hold responsible for.

When Ariakan had entered the hall, he had not seen any black rose on the table. 

In order to not allow any evidence of surprise show more than for a fraction of a second, the prisoner had shrugged his shoulders and left after the sentence had been pronounced, escorted by the same six armed guards who would have brought him to his execution. Later, however, he had thanked Thomas in a cold but courteous tone, and told him that he would pay his debt by trying to cooperate as he could without ever shunning the memory of those he had left behind, since he had always hated to owe favours to anyone.

"You are welcome." the new Knight of the Rose had answered, patting him on the back and still congratulating himself for that lucky little talk that had seemed to originate his change. "You're welcome indeed."

He had felt happy. He knew he had saved a life that, he was sure of it, would be inestimable for the Knighthood at large, a man that was valiant, strong, intelligent and honourable in spite of his background. To turn the son of Ariakas into such a person was the greatest triumph he could dream of in times of peace, and he was sure he would succeed. So sure! He just had had to picture Ariakan's reaction when he told him about the honour code of his enemies, and he was corroborated in his idea that the prisoner would eventually have to surrender to the evidence that he did not really belong to the place where he had been born. 

And, what? He had been right that time, praise his sound judgement. As right as he was now about the pointlessness of that damned feast and its aftermath of alliances, if only somebody would listen to him.

_* * * * * * * * * *_

"When was this built?"

It was a really delightful sunny afternoon, the same one that Thomas could have admired from the window if he had been in the mood. Voices, songs and shouts were ringing merrily in the warm air, entwined with the noise of horses and carriages in a happy pandemonium that seemed just invoked by a luring spell to make the Knights forget about everything else and go to watch them. And yet, nothing of this had seemed to affect Ariakan, who was shamelessly shunning the sunrays to have a walk with a Knight of the Sword. The old veteran had taken upon him the task of teaching him the history and details of the main fortifications, and, as the weather was so splendid outside and people kept arriving in a continuous flow, they had decided to go inside the Tower, where nobody would distract them.

"In the old times. Legends say that it was Vinas Solamnus himself who did it."

"And who had that idea? It must have been someone with knowledge about war tactics as well as magic."

"Oh, no!" The Knight turned to glance at Ariakan, who was looking at the imposing structure of the innermost courtyard of the Tower with a frown. "It was a High Clerist of the old times, who was given the Orb of Dragons some say that by Paladine himself."

"Paladine? A High Clerist? But, sir Leighbar..." Ariakan objected. "The Orb of Dragons is a magic thing. Only a mage can know about his properties."

"_And _the clerics of old", Leighbar answered, very sure of himself and eyeing Ariakan condescendingly. And indeed, though the latter had to assent, in his inner thoughts he kept repeating as a litany: _Pompous imbecile. Narrow-headed Solamnic!_

"I thought you must have used magic sometime in the long life of your Order, but I see your mistrust for it has too deep roots", he said in the end, and shrugged his shoulders. "Did you never think it could be useful? After all, handled by a cleric or not, the Orb was made by magicians and could unleash a magic power."

"Made by magicians?" the Knight nearly shouted, looking as if he had been insulted. "Oh, that's what _they say. __I believe it was made by Paladine, or in any other case by the High Clerist with his help."_

"You have the oldest tradition, so you must know." Ariakan nodded courteously to avoid an argument. "By the way, I believe I still have a question."

"Then ask it, lad! As long as it isn't about _sorcerers_ I think I will have the knowledge you need."

"Thank you." said the young man, still snickering inwardly. "It's about the usefulness of those highly illogical fortifications now that there's no Orb. Surely you will have to do something to correct that."

"Oh, we've some plans already, meant to correct that in time", sir Leighbar answered. He and Ariakan began to descend the gloomy corridors of the Dragon Trap, and there the voice of the Solamnic Knight resounded with a hollow echo. The ex Dragon soldier shivered for a moment, unable to explain how those spurts of dry dragon blood in the walls produced such a sudden effect of oppression in his heart. "After all, there's no hurry, for we're at peace now."

"What?" Ariakan's eyes could do nothing but widen with surprise, even if he could not really say that the euphoria of the majority of the Knights was unknown to him. So much for Thomas and his ramblings. "And what if Highlord Uth Matar decided to attack you tomorrow? "

"The Dark Lady?" The Knight laughed. "I think she's more intelligent than that. She has lost, her forces aren't comparable to ours and she knows that. Besides, the Tower of the High Clerist will never fall as long as it's defended by men of faith, or so the legend goes. She must know that too."

_She does. After all, her father was a Solamnic, _Ariakan thought to himself, though, of course, he did not say it. Instead, he preferred to arch his eyebrows in his most well-known expression, and bit his lip to find a completely different kind of words.

"Well, I suppose that a prisoner cannot voice his opinions about the better defence of the place where he's being kept, and I for sure won't be the one to deny your unconquerable faith. Yet, this issue of the fortifications bothers me, and I would suggest to find a solution immediately, before it was too late. Imagine an attack now, while you're all celebrating the peace...the women, the children. Kitiara is an old acquaintance of mine, and I know she's far capable of doing that."

Ariakan stopped dead, fearing he had said too much. To his utmost surprise, though, he found that the Knight was looking at him affectionately for the first time since they had met, and that he actually nodded with a serious smile.

"I do not think you know a lot about political issues and treaties, lad, yet I see that your worry comes from your heart", he said, putting a hand on his shoulder. " Once you have learned what you still have to come to know, once you're older, I will be one of those that won't mind that you're a prisoner when it comes to listen to you."

"Oh, come on, sir Leighbar!" Ariakan sighed as he got away from the hand of the elder man. "I wouldn't give my trust so easily."

"If you meant evil, you wouldn't say that, right?"

The young man smiled then, surprised. " Well... I suppose not."

_Or yes, _he thought for himself when they continued their walk, shaking his head in a nearly imperceptible move. It was always that what guided them; honour, confidence, oaths, _est Sularis oth Mithas and the rest. Their weakness, unknown by the Highlords of the Dragonarmies._

Their strength.

"Er...and, sir... how many men of faith are required to defend this Tower?"

(to be continued)


	4. The Return of the Storm

**Chapter Four: The Return Of The Storm**

To everybody´s surprise and annoyance, and in spite of all the happy predictions, spring was abruptly quenched days later. At first, in came some clouds, then, about the next day, some more, and the wind began to blow  colder and colder till the offspring of the darkened sky was not rain, but ice.  The Knights who had lands suddenly began to excuse themselves from duty, to return to their castles and care for their crops and plants, and, though none of the guests saw fitting to do the same, many messages were written and urgently delivered in the Tower that week. Even the commander in chief of the stronghold felt the urgent call of his personal responsibilities, and had to leave lord Michael in charge of the Solamnic part of the Palanthas festivities. 

A low rumble of thunder was beginning to be distinctly heard in the Tower when lord Gunthar began to cross the outer courtyard in search of his dragon, followed by Thomas of Thelgaard. Both Knights of the Rose, Grand Master and novice, were discussing not too knightly matters, yet the knowing tone they used was the same than if the talk had been about swords and battle tactics.

"I would advise you, my lord, to cover the most delicate plants with cloth and leave the others. Blizzards in late May are never very dangerous."

"I know, Thomas. But I know also that it´s better to be prudent than to regret it later. An ancestor of mine, long ago, lost a crop for refusing to believe that Habbakuk would do something like sending snow in summer. Alas! that he had not learned that it even could rain fire mountains in Yule!"

"I hope this is not the thing right now." Thomas smiled, wrapping himself better in his cloak. " The brusque change of weather has been said to be strange and ominous, but I have suffered many a trick played by the weather and I´m not so easily impressed. I believe this will be no more than a short regression, and that cloth will do. That´s what my brother is doing in Thelgaard, by the way."

Gunthar stopped for a moment in his tracks, in order to take breath and look once more at the grey and dense sky. His lips were contorted in a slight sigh, and he shook his head.

"You do right. Yet my lands are in a very elevated place, and dark clouds usually "get tangled in the mountains", as my father used to say. You know, sometimes it´s sunny everywhere and it´s snowing in my castle, to show the world how particular and noblest among the nobles the Uth Wistans are. Annoying, by Paladine!"

"Yes, annoying indeed." the youngest Knight echoed. A shadow of a feeling dwelled briefly in his eyes as he tore them away towards the sky to follow lord Gunthar´s example, but it dissapeared almost in a second. "Really annoying."

Gunthar shook his head again. 

"Yes, things do not always happen the way it should be. It´s a distinct trait they have …. But now, let´s hurry! "he waved him forward, suddenly impatient. "It´s going to rain in seconds, and it´s no fun up there, believe me!"

When they finally arrived to the place where lord Gunthar´s bronze dragon was indolently lying on the floor, the conversation had already waned long ago. Gunthar reached the place first, and sir Thomas came behind, bowing his head as he could distinguish the figure of lord Michael wrapped in his cloak in front of them . The old head of the order of the Crown, veteran of the Lance, was there waiting to bide farewell to the Grand Master that had once been his enemy, withstanding the attacks of the cold wind with a stoic counenance.

"So you´re really leaving, my lord."

"It seems I am." Gunthar said, good naturedly. "Though I will return soon, unfortunately for all of you."

"Unfortunately?" Lord Michael snorted, and Thomas had to supress a smile.  He could imagine what was crossing his mind at the moment: the provisional commander of the Tower was about to turn now into the main victim of the celebrated lord Amothus, Lord of Palanthas and main organiser of all the festivities. "For Paladine´s sake, that I will wish you back, my lord!"

"Lord Amothus can be handled perfectly if you say yes to everything he tells you before he has even finished with it. "lord Gunthar joked. "Or so I heard last year from Tanis Half-Elven. Besides, Markham will take many of the responsiblities. He´s there , after all, and knows Amothus since he was born."

"Yes, and their relationship is rather problematic." Lord Michael shrugged his shoulders. "I´m not good at being _between_ two people." 

In that moment, the dragon got up and lazily flapped his wings. As they saw him, lord Michael as well as Gunthar sobered and turned inexpressive once more, and the first bowed to the second.

"Yet, lord Gunthar, believe me: I will do what I can. Sad but true, I do not complain about a war but I do complain about a simple festivity.  Forgive me, my lord, and may Habbakuk help you in your lands!".

"Thank you for your good wishes, lord Michael." the Grand Master replied, squeezing this arm." I leave you with mine also, though I know you will do everything far better than me. By the way, Tanis Half-Elven arrives tomorrow, don´t forget it. Tell all the Knights not only to treat him with the respect he deserves, but also to _avoid _asking him where his wife is!"

_Oh, no worry! Lord Amothus will kindly do that for all of us, _Thomas thought sarcastically for himself. As everybody knew, Lauranlanthalasa Kanan was the heroine of the Palanthians, the Elven princess in shining armour that saved them from the clutches of Highlord Uth Matar´s Blue dragons. They went mad with joy every time that she appeared among them, and their homage was so keen that the poor lady nearly had a colapse in last year´s festivities. No wonder she had preferred to stay apart this time, for in Silvanesti she would be far more relaxed even if, according to rumours, Lorac´s Nightmare had left the place in quite a horrible state.

"Thomas!"

Suddenly interrupted in his musings, the Knight turned towards lord Gunthar and nodded hurriedly.

"Eh…yes, my lord?"

"Come with me and help me to get to the saddle. If you excuse us, Zephyr…"

"Please, make yourself comfortable!" the dragon answered in a melodious voice, doing what he could to get into the easiest position for his rider to climb him. He knew that lord Gunthar, unlike the younger Knights, was never going to get completely used to ride him, and so he always tried to handle him with care. Bronze dragons were widely known for their exquisite courtesy.

"Here, lord Gunthar." Thomas said. The young Knight knelt with promptitude, and joined his hands to make an adequate support for the Grand Master´s right foot. Carefully, he pushed him up as Gunthar did the same with both his arms grasping the saddle, until he was able to pull his other leg over Zephyr´s back. "Have a good journey!"

"The best journey ever, be sure of it." his superior growled, hearing the distinct clank of the first drop of water against the metal of his armour. Then, with a slight change of expression, he turned around to eye everything carefully, and when he saw that lord Michael was waiting at some distance he leaned to him in a mysterious way. "But tell me before I leave, how did _he _react?"

Thomas tried to swallow his surprise at the question as he could. For a moment he was indeed at loss,unable to form words in his mind. _He_ had forbidden the subject just the day before! 

 "He…he semed to take it rather reasonably, my lord. " he said at last, carefully. "I insisted indeed, and asked him if he would challenge him to a duel or something if he was free to do so, but he answered, rather laconically, that abiding by our rules he had to respect this was neither the time nor the place. It seemed almost as if he was teaching the Measure to _me_! "

"Good." Gunthar nodded, satisfied. "I know it was really impressing what you had done with him, but I have to confess I did not hold  many expectations this time. Especially after the way he behaved these last days."

The young Knight backed away somewhat at these words and drew a deep breath. The rain was falling hard now, and lord Michael was looking impatiently at him. He cursed in an inaudible tone.

"Please, my lord Gunthar... "he began. "I know he has no voice or opinion whatsoever, but I have already told you why I think it was wrong for him to do your bidding that time. In my own opinion…"

"You have said it very well, no voice or opinion whatsoever. "lord Gunthar interrupted him. "And the only way he can ever achieve his change completely is by doing what he´s told."

_No. Keep silent! Bow and go away!_ an inner sensible voice was shouting into Thomas´s head. He had held that same argument at least a couple of times in the past week, and, though he was always courteous and careful, it was evident he did not share the opinion of his superior. This was not good, and it should not happen. 

The young Knight of the Rose cursed once more, putting his hand over his eyes to keep the rain away from them. After all, lord Gunthar was right in his own way, as his charge was in his. Ariakan had been told to be present at the festivities of the Peace, and he should not have refused. In the last instance, the Measure of a prisoner was reduced to do what was wanted of him.

Still….

" I tried to convince him to go willingly, but he said that his honour did not allow him to be shown among his ancient enemies as a trophy. "he decided to say in the end, matter-of-factly. "That he could do everything, to stay under the same roof as the man who killed his father, to even forget any idea of revenge since it´s contrary to our laws, but _not_ while looking into his face."

"Tell him then, sir Thomas" lord Gunthar growled, as he grasped with firmness the reins with his hands "that this is a matter of honour for other people. But for him, in his situation, it´s called a matter of pride. May Paladine guard you!"

Without waiting for any further answer, the Grand Master made the dragon spread his wings and left the coutyard abruptly. Thomas and Michael were left standing alone under the rain, the first mulling aloud the last words he had heard, pondering their harshness, their truth.

"Are you going to stay here for the whole tempest, sir Thomas?" the impatient voice of the new commander reached his ears at last.

"Yes." he answered. He felt the cold water dripping inside his armour and clothes, and supressed a shiver. " I train at this hour for the tournement to come, with Ariakan."

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

In the oppossite side of the Tower, meanwhile, a young dark-haired man was also receiving the harsh blessing of the storm.  Cloakless, a sword in his hand, and with his wet hair dripping down his back, he was practicing furious attacks against an imaginary enemy that stood in front of him, stopping now and then to close his eyes and feel the icy showers over his body.

_Thomas, Thomas._ he thought for the eleventh time. _Will you come today?_

He was alone. The other Knights had left the field of practices as soon as the rain began to fall hard, and were now warming their hands over a good fire and watching him from the window, no doubt astounded at his rashness. They did not understand that he enjoyed it; the thunderstorm and the drizzling rain, and the painful breath of the wind for what it did to his cold and wet limbs. They ignored that he had used to go outside the temple of Luerkhisis to claim them with his body since he had been just a child, and if he had told them the nature of his feelings when he was there in that situation they would never have understood him. 

_Not that they would have tried very hard,_ Ariakan snickered after a moment of thought_,_ while driving his sword through the imaginary heart of an enemy. _They only know how to talk about knowing one´s foe, but when it comes to the truth, who does it? Oh, no, they don´t need to do anything of the sort, for they´re right and I´m wrong. And the worst of all, Chemosh take them, is that it´s true!_

His slippery attacker seemed to appear again in front of him, either with a mocking smile or most probably with a Knightly beatific expression, and he continued dealing his worst blows to his figure. This was a good way of draining himself emotionally, something he needed only too much at the moment. He could even live for some minutes under the illusion that he had chosen the easy way, and that he was fighting for his life to slowly die with bravery rather than to be captured. That, soon, his blood would cover the ground, and that his last breath would leave his lips, defeated but not taken.  How merciful it would be!

Yet he knew, and very well, that he wouldn´t die now. He had by mere chance been given the opportunity of choosing by himself, but that accursed Knight had come to shout into his ear that dying would be cowardice and utterly forsaking Takhisis, with other words that hadn´t been less deadly if less intended.  And then he had been forced to remember with vividness how they had **all** forsaken the Queen of Dragons and betrayed her, how she had been forced to return to the Abyss just when she was nearing the moment of her utmost glory.

_He had to remember how he had stood among all this, sharing their false dreams of greatness while she had been each time  a bit farther away from his heart._

Ariakan killed his opponent and took the sword away from his body in a single quick thrust, to meet the one that approached him from behind. Sweat drops mingled with the rain falling down his face and body, as well as with the imaginary blood he felt flowing in rivers at the battlefield. What was he meant to do? Was he the one who had to atone for everything, the victim of their defeat? And, if he was, why he?

_Perhaps because he had…?_

Stopping his fight for a moment, and feeling the energies leaving him in  quick rush, the young prisoner closed his eyes, and  fell to the bitter torture of wondering once more whether everything could really have been different.

*     *     *     *     *

_In all his life, the son of Zeboim had never ceased to love Takhisis. He loved her with a love that could only come from one that had felt her presence since the day of his birth, her power guiding his footsteps since his most tender age, and with the passion of someone that has never felt his spirit drifting apart from hers. When he was a child and began to train in magical arts, he had never felt much interest or much regret at his inability, yet the fact that he seemed to lack every possible aptitude to become a cleric of Takhisis had mortified him to no extent. No matter how he tried, how he prayed and how he studied; the ability eluded him, until in the end he had even had to be forbidden by unanimity of the Guild of Clerics to continue trying anymore. They had told him there were other ways to serve the Queen of Darkness, and when he started to show what a warrior and strategist he was, both they and he had been confirmed in the truth of that statement._

_Ariakan had been sixteen years old when he became a soldier of the Dragonarmies, and with eighteen he was an officer. He boasted that he would have done that even without his father´s help, and indeed proved it in many ways: his enemies feared him like hell and he never suffered a single defeat. At each glorious battle, the empire of his father, of the Highlords, of Takhisis, stretched farther its boundaries, and the most powerful of all gods and goddesses was glad, planning her return to the world of Krynn. She would very soon arrive in all her majesty and reign over dark lands until the end of time, so it was what those that were able to hear her voice said to him. They just had to wait until the end of winter…_

_Yes, slowly,  the belief that the end of that last winter was going to be also the end of their exertions, a kind of a black and sinister spring dawning, had begun to spread over the hosts of darkness like fire. He had believed it also, trusting his father- who held council with Takhisis in person every once in a while-, and had wished it more than anyone. And yet, that belief and that certainty had had a curious and destructive effect on those who surrounded him, and this he had noticed also. He remembered well how shocked he had been when, suddenly, it seemed to him that the Highlords had forgotten that they were conquering for Takhisis. They had begun to fight for themselves and among themselves to secure the highest places in the new world order, losing lands and strongholds in their destructive and bloody duels. The most coward and weak of all murdered treacherously those who were better than them, and his father, the most powerful and in theory unquestionable, began to be closely followed at  each of his steps by the ambitious eyes of the woman that had been increasing her influence  during the war, Kitiara Uth Matar, who desired avidly to wear the Crown of Power upon her forehead. Others, by theirr own, tried to impress their goddess more than their rivals by destroying whole cities and butchering their inhabitants, unwittingly making the survivors who saw that lose their last remnants of fear, for it was known that when any being, from a dragon to a gully dwarf, was cornered, the last shade of reason left him, replaced by a wave of irrationality that was also called heroism. These people had felt cornered, threatened with complete annihilation for the first time in their lives, and that had been the reason of the rapid growth of the resistance, of  the awakening of the hidden peoples and the rebirth of the Solamnic Order, all marching behind that group of adventurers from Abanasinia who told those stories about the old gods. Who, by the way, had been dismissed by his father as "a bunch of beggars who had casually found a magic object", in answer to Verminaard of Nidus and Kitiara Uth Matar´s worries about them._

_"Evil defeats itself". That was the sentence engraved in pristine characters on the Disks of Mishakal, ancient goddess of healing, and the truth of each word had shaken Ariakan to the core. Evil, or what the goddess had called with that name, had defeated itself through greediness, through lust for dominion and through heedless cruelty. If it had once been an alternative to the reign of the people of the gods of Light and a new form of dominion, it had become nothing else than a bloody monster that would have destroyed first everything that surrounded it and then itself. Ariakan had had those thoughts, with such glowing clarity that now he couldn´t even have the comfort of his past ignorance, and his musings about whether Takhisis was happy, whether his father was doing right, and whether those adventurers, or the Elves, or the Knights of Solamnia, weren´t going to do something one day had made him stay awake many a night. Why, if he had gone once to a place where a group of draconians had finished torturing some warrior of a city he had forgotten, and before the man had died, full of the urge to know, he had asked him if he saw now that Takhisis couldn´t be defeated.  And, what had been the answer? The warrior had stared fixedly at him with eyes full of hate and defiance, and, with his very last breath, told him that he cursed Takhisis, that her power would be overthrown soon; and young Ariakan had felt a shiver crossing his body even as he laughed._

_Yet, how could this ever be?he also thought  at the very next moment. Surely Takhisis had everything planned. From what his father and the other clerics used to say, she liked the fights among her servants, and she only favoured those who were strong enough as to survive. Besides, there was nothing she liked more than barren wastelands, hymns to her glory made of ashes and fire of dragons. He had been taught that since he was a child, and the speed with which the Dragonarmies had conquered the lands of Ansalon only could confirm that strategy. No! He was childish and irreverent, the great goddess and those who served her knew what they were doing a thousand times better than he did, and how could he cease feeling a wave of exultation each time he saw their forces assembled at the shrine of Takhisis? They were going to conquer the world. The others were weak, they either had no gods or had the wrong ones, and even if they oppossed resistance, they never would be able to thwart their might, the supremacy of the strongest ones that had survived through fire and blood. He was Ariakan, son of Zeboim, daughter of Takhisis. He was Ariakan, son of Ariakas, Emperor of Ansalon. And, at the end of the winter, they would have won._

Ariakan opened his eyes, and saw that the rain was still falling over his soaked body. He was beginning to freeze in that position, so he got up again and essayed other movements with his sword in order to get warm. Thomas had not arrived yet, but if he had he probably wouldn´t have seen him, for his vision was already too much blurred by the curtains of water.

_"No, Father, do not wear that crown! She wants it, she covets it. You know she has planned and fought very hard for this meeting to be held, only to find a way to take it away from you!"_

_"Nonsense!" The smoldering eyes pierced him, almost painfully." She is not strong enough to take it from me, but the day she makes me be humiliated in front of the Queen and of the assembled Dragonarmies by not daring to wear it in front of her, she will be."_

_"You are the brain, the essence of this army! Don´t you see it? She is the dangerous lightning that strikes our enemies pitilessly and makes them tremble. Takhisis will lose much if one of you die for a petty fight for power, now that our enemies are beginning to strike back."_

_The sensation of being speaking with a wall had never been so evident for the youngster, never so tiring. He felt that sensation of choking that produced so many words in his mouth that couldn´t get out at the same time, while the man in front of him kept getting himself ready for the audience as if he wasn´t even hearing them._

_"Listen to me, Ariakan, my son." Ariakas began at llast, as he lowered his head and, in a slow movement, put the Crown of Power on it. The red gems glowed with the colour of fresh blood, in a sinister contrast with the dark chambers of the temple." One of us, either me of her, cannot survive this day. And he who lives will be the winner." _

_The winner. The one who would stand over the body of the other, of one of the two most brilliant generals of the Queen of Darkness. The one who would begin an internal war just when their plans were standing over a sharp edge, and slaughter half of the army that had backed his rival, to the glory of…himself._

_Just in this moment, even though he tried to tell his heart and mind a lot of times that his father was right;  that it would be cowardice if he made just a single step backwards, and that the Queen should gladly favour the strongest of the two as her chosen one over all the others, Ariakan felt the past doubts growing inside again. It was not like this. It should never have been meant to be like this._

_"She cannot want a war among you two just **now**! We cannot afford it, it´s impossible! Why don´t you …why don´t you **stop** and think for once?"_

_Wondering at his own words, and at how he had been able to utter them, Ariakan found himself breathing heavily, his jaw clenched and his eyes staring back at his father with a deep rage. He saw Ariakas walking towards him, and his strong hands violently pushing him to the wall, but he was too angry to care._

_"You are worried, I see it in your face. And you´re right to be so! She won´t favour any of you, she shouldn´t…!"_

_"Shut up! "Ariakas roared. "You will stay here until everything ends; your jabbering would distract me too much. But we will have a conversation later, be sure of it!"_

_These words, though in a violent way, seemed somewhat to help Ariakan return to his normal self. It was useless, he thought, he was there trying to convince him of what? He had begun to shout for nothing, only to give way to his frustration, for the situation was already too advanced to do anything else about it. In a moment, his father would be gone to the Hall of Audiences, and he would stay here…imprisoned? Preserved?_

_Either way, Ariakan knew better than to try to fight it. It would only serve to end locked, tied up or worse._

_"You believe you´re in danger, Father. If you didn´t, you wouldn´t keep your heir away from you… "he began instead. Then, he felt a great, overpowering impulse of impotence, and he rectified once more. "Take care."_

_"I will. " Ariakas answered, and got away from him with a somewhat more relaxed expression. "I am the leader of this army. She will have to submit."_

_Forbidding himself to open his mouth ever again, his defeat acknowledged, the young Dragonarmy officer shook his head and sat down on a chair, where he began counting the seconds meticulously to avoid thinking. Never again. Never to open his mouth again. Never to think, of the danger, of Kitiara, of the crown, of Takhisis, until something happened and he had to react someway. He had the distict feeling that it would be soon enough._

_"If I…if I saw the slightest possibility that I would not return, I would have told you in detail what I expect you to do." Ariakas resumed his speech from the threshold of the door. His son couldn´t discern if there was concern in his voice, but, anyway, he had determined not to care anymore, so he kept on counting. "As it is, just know that, if the impossible happens, your main task should be to stay alive, and  the second, to go to Solamnia. There, Kitiara has a son hidden somewhere, a brat about two or three years old. I want you to find him and to kill him, for our dynasty will never be quenched and suplanted by an imposter."_

_Ariakan didn´t even look back._

*     *     *     *    *      
  


_He stayed there counting for longer than he had expected. In fact, nobody could have told him that he would be there for so long, as well as that the ones who would disturb his concentration would be neither the entourage of his father nor the minions of Kitiara trying to enter. It was a dangerous, terrible noise; the sound of the whole temple being shaken by an earthquake and crumbling down over their heads._

_The wrath of Takhisis._

_Though he didn´t know why, Ariakan was then sure that his father was dead, and not only him. All their ambitions, their reign and their might had died also, he could feel it, and an inner feeling of pain, guilt and anger tore in shreds his very entrails. As undistinguishable shadows in his blurred vision, he could see the draconians, the most fierce and faithful of those that had served his father, fight, die, and then flee, and the warriors in old and brilliant armours advance towards the place where he was._

_Solamnics. Enemies, that came to take away what remained to him: his life. And he wanted it, yet he nevertheless swore to himself, with an innate fierceness that came he didn´t know where from, that they would pay for it and die with him. They weren´t going to rejoice from their victory as he would rejoice from his final battle, taking the life of the first, then the second, and the third, and seeing the fourth and the fifth look at him with fear and surprise before being killed at their time. On top of their bodies he would lie forever, not on the cold floor as a dead trophy taken without blood and tears, and with his last breath he would laugh instead of weeping. So be it!_

Glory.

_Defeat._

_All of a sudden, a treacherous red substance clouded his vision, making him lose the last sense of reality. He writhed in darkness, calling the name of his father and of the woman that had caused his downfall in an incoherent turmoil of alucinations, but he couldn´t fight any longer as his body didn´t respond to his orders. The voice of a woman began to haunt him, repeating that it had all been his fault in persistent tones, yet when he cried that it was true she didn´t even seem to notice his smothered voice, and kept on and on with her litany until he did not hear anything anymore. Then, once more, everything changed. A light appeared in his vision, and, in front of it, a face, looking at him and calling him from his world of nightmare._

"Ariakan!"

No, leave me alone!  I do not want to hear you, your reasons, your truth! Go away and do not insist!

"Ariakan, stop at once!" 

A deep commotion shook the young man to the core at the distinct sound of that command. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and saw sir Thomas of Thelgaard staring at him with a stern expression, oceans dripping from his green cloak. The tempest had relented somewhat, yet rain still fell over both of them and made their vision hazy and uncertain. 

"So," he exclaimed, surprised and still dizzy. "you have come?"

"Did I ever fail an appointment?"

"The rain made your comrades fail their practices today. "Ariakan answered as he gathered himself, putting a certain tinge of sarcasm in his voice. " I thought it to be strongly disuasory."

"Ariakan..."  In a single movement, the cloak slid off the Knight´s shoulders, and left his now unprotected body into view. He wore no armour, just as his companion, only a practice sword. "Certain circumstances in my past life, most of them difficult, made me be quite able to endure those things that people generally call "the wrath of Nature". Though, this I must confess, I cannot say I enjoy them like you."

For a moment, both gazes met, and there was a brief flash of mutual respect and wariness in their eyes. For all that Ariakan had been angry before at their lack of understanding, he had to admit to himself that this was not true for all the Knights of Solamnia, and, furthermore, that this made him feel uncomfortable. There were many dark secrets locked within his heart now, too many for his own good.

"So Lord Gunthar is already gone?"he asked hoarsely, feeling it was time at last to attempt the really important conversation. Thomas changed of expression again at once, and frowned.

"So that does interest you?" he grumbled.

 Ariakan bit his lip. "Yes. I wanted to see him."

"To see him?" the Knight snorted, incredulous. "A good idea, indeed! To tell him _what_ on Krynn?"

The wind whistled through the windows of the abandoned part of the Tower, and Ariakan fell silent before ever knowing what was he beginning to utter. Yes, indeed, what on Krynn was he going to tell him? Would he ever accept any less than what he had asked? How was _he_ going to fall abjectly to the ground at his feet?

All of a sudden, his face gained some expression, a dangerous flicker that Thomas had never seen before. Turning towards him, he wiped his soaked forehead, and held his sword as the drops trickled down the blunted edge in an irregular play that unwittingly mimicked the shedding of blood in the battlefield.

"Come". his fey voice said, challenging and demanding at the same time.  "That´s why you came here for, not for talking."

Thomas answered to the challenge by advancing, his sword readied also. Ariakan saw him swallow with effort, but he couldn´t be certain if his opponent had been momentarily uneasy or if it had been just his imagination, so he decided not to take anything for granted and put all his senses in a nearly animal state of alert. His opponent was a habile fighter, after all. A very habile fighter, whose main strength resided in the fact that he was always able to keep an analytical mind while he fought, even when the sword that threatened him wasn´t a practice sword but a deadly weapon.

However, this time, the moment for preparation and evaluation was over very soon. With a shout, Ariakan attacked, and the metal of the swords clashed with a strident noise as Thomas blocked him. Now, he could see it more clearly: Thomas _was _uneasy, and his surprise had been big enough as to betray him the moment that he found that he was nearly unable to withstand the strength of his companion´s impetus. After two years of practicing together, he had allowed himself to relax at least on this front, though it seemed now that he had nearly payed a price for it. To make it even worse, Ariakan launched next a set of assaults as quick as lightning, and left him with no other option than retreating to a permanently defensive position. 

The ex-Dragon soldier´s smile widened as he saw reflected on his partner´s features and moves the effect of his attack, and for a moment he wondered if he had felt such raw joy since his five enemies fell by his hand. No, probably not, he told himself, curtains of rain trying in vain to blind his sight. Their sparring matches, though good, had become little more than exercises or games, and the Order would indeed have forbidden any other thing, not to speak about Thomas´s sure negative to even hear about it. But now he was going to have his way: they were alone in the middle of the storm, and Thomas was trapped and forced to give his best to him for once. That he was angry could only help to increase his margin of tolerance against breachings of the Measure, and, later, his guilt would prevent him from staring accusingly again for what Ariakan had said to Lord Gunthar.

_Takhisis! _the son of Ariakas shouted exultantly with the voice of his mind, a remembance of his battes of old. As if the invoked goddess had run to his help in that moment, his sword made contact with the part of the Knight´s blade that was exactly next to the handle, and nearly took it off from his grasp. Thomas supressed a moan, but was quick and skilled enough to slide the weapon in its proper position and grasp it firmly again before the sword of his opponent returned for the next strike. Like that, he was able to withstand it, and, surprisingly enough, even got to retreat to a dignified position.

"Good". Ariakan blurted out in a ragged breath, pausing a bit to reconsider the situation. Thomas was not hiding his feelings anymore; he was openly staring at him, his surprise, as he could see now that he had stopped to look better, mingled with censure.

"What now? "the prisoner demanded with a grumble. " Will you accuse me of using dirty methods?"

"Lord Gunthar was right. "Thomas shook his head. "Pride is your bane; it nearly killed you already. You are intelligent, Ariakan, and you have been able to struggle against it several times, so why do you allow it to overpower you again?" 

"What?"

Feeling stung as by a thousand swords, Ariakan shouted and prepared to attack once more. He had never felt such kind of unleashed emotions toward Thomas, such raw desire of making him shut up, and such hate for the superior look that he had ben unable to take away from his countenance. How did he dare? How could he pretend to always know better than himself? He was a Solamnic, he had captured him, destroyed his life and then his death, and, still not happy, he pretended to keep telling him what to do!

Thomas stopped that attack, too, and his knowing defence caused the next moments to slow down; a strangely unreal sucession of moves, breaths and clashes for both contrincants. None of them was able to open a breach in the other´s defenses, and, as the wind and the water kept chilling their bodies to the bone, they continued fighting, making all their sucessive attacks and retreats as part of a unnatural dance. There was something terrible about it that was far beyond all their previous combats, Ariakan thought for a second in a small interlude of his fury. If he had been unaffected, he would have delighted in it as a spectator watching a perfect play, or as an actor who knew how to perform and enjoyed the moment of proving so.

Yet, as it was, he only felt the urge to win. No, not even to win, but to defeat.

_"Nonsense!" The smoldering eyes pierced him, almost painfully." She is not strong enough to take it from me, but the day she makes me be humiliated in front of the Queen and of the assembled Dragonarmies by not daring to wear it in front of her, she will be."_

_"Nonsense!" The smoldering eyes pierced…_

"Ariakan, hear me! You don´t want to humiliate yourself. Yet we all have to be humiliated in our lives, and if we don´t do it willingly, others humiliate us by force. I_ was_ humiliated, I know what it is like!" Thomas aimed suddenly at the right flank of his opponent, and Ariakan was at pains to regain his stance. As he did it, however, he tripped somewhat in the slippery floor.

The Knight did not lose his opportunity. Just a moment, and he was already on top of him, pulling him down and pressing his blade to the throat of the furious young prisoner, who cursed himself for his carelessness.

"Through difficult experiences, we learn. "Thomas said in a worn out tone that was not much more than a whisper. "That´s what my parents always told me. They take the pride away from us, and pride is what makes us blind to our greatest misfortunes."

_They were going to conquer the world. The others were weak, they either had no gods or had the wrong ones, and even if they oppossed resistance, they never would be able to thwart their might, the supremacy of the strongest ones that had survived through fire and blood. He was Ariakan, son of Zeboim, daughter of Takhisis. He was Ariakan, son of Ariakas, Emperor of Ansalon. And, at the end of the winter, they would have won…._

_…succeeded, joining your forces, in defeating yourselves!"…_

Ariakan tried to struggle for a last time, more an irrational way to vent his feelings openly than any other thing, but he found the cold kiss of the sword tip in his neck a soon as he made the first move. Thomas was looking intently at him.

_"Nonsense!" The smoldering eyes pierced him, almost painfully." She is not strong enough to take it from me, but the day she makes me be humiliated in front of the Queen and of the assembled Dragonarmies by not daring to wear it in front of her, she will be."_

Ariakan, son of a mysterious woman that eluded his most secret dreams. Ariakan, son of a man whose ambition led to his own death and the end of the reign of the Dragonarmies at the end of the winter. 

 _Ariakan, who had known_.

"I submit." he said in a calm voice, though each word caused him pain. "I will go to the celebration, but before I will present my excuses to Lord Gunthar."

And, to the young man´s great surprise, after he had uttered those words he felt better with himself than what he had in a long time.

*     *     *     *     *

Next day, Sir Thomas of Thelgaard awoke with a terrible cold. Lord Garad, his commander, got angry at him for his carelessness, and Ariakan couldn´t supress his mirth when he learned about it.

"You shouldn´t have stayed outside with me." he admonished him with suspicious gravity when he was allowed to go visit him in his bedroom. "Rain is not good for you."

Thomas answered something inintelligible in a voice half-distorted by his blocked and swollen nose, and motioned him to bring the glass of water that was on the table. Ariakan gave it to him, and later took the custom of coming to his side now and then, laughing at the strange justice of Fate. It seemed both had lost in the end, after all.

Three days later, the morning that Thomas was to get up and return to his duties again, Lord Garad entered his bedroom in a quick stride, and told him to follow him at once. The festivities, until new order, had been suspended, and Lord Gunthar had just arrived in his dragon and was summoning all Knights to the courtyard to tell them something important.

Worried, and still dizzy after his convalescence, the Knight finished dressing himself and opened the door, where Ariakan stood looking at him. 

"What´s the matter?" he asked, worried.

"Kitiara." was the prisoner´s answer. "What do you bet?"

Thomas threw him a gloomy look, and started to walk through the corridor. Ariakan smirked, and then turned promptly to follow him towards a group of Knights that were walking ahead of them.

The truth was that, this time, he did not know how to feel.

(to be continued)


	5. The Fated Lady

Disclaimer:  Same as in previous chapters.

Hearty thanks to Margit and her beta, comments…etc, etc (snip many lines of things I should be –and I AM-   grateful about)

**Chapter Five: The Fated Lady.**

_She had always looked at him with some strange kind of emotion, whether it was lust or any other kind of interest he could not tell right now. Right then he had never thought about the latter, for, after all, had he ever had the chance of distinguishing between the two? He was enthralled by her in some way or other, and that was what had mattered to him; deeply fascinated by her ambiguous smile, her dark locks, her hard body and those sparkling eyes that always defeated all glances, always having their will in spite of the whole world. Whenever they talked, he felt the unexplainable urge of proving he was no child anymore, and most of the times he had the uneasy feeling that he was making a fool of himself, but she never told him so. If all, she seemed amused, or maybe even pleased at his exertions._

_How many warriors had been inside her bed before she came, nobody could tell. It wasn't even possible to know how many had been there after she had appeared in Sanction for the first time and asked for a place in the armies of Takhisis, though she was widely known as the lover of Ariakas. She did not accept to gain status by bedding people, yet, once she had gained it by her own skills as a brave and remorseless fighter, she did not blush at her own taking advantage of the situation. As everybody said, she was insatiable._

_"I will never allow a man to control my pleasure, or to constrain my urges", she used to say, crossing her arms upon her blue armour and rocking herself contentedly in a chair. "If anyone, no matter who he is, tries to demand from me more than what is my own will to give, I will never look upon him again."_

_Ariakan nodded when she said that, and always threw a sideways glance at his father, who was also in the room, signing papers or doing anything else. But Ariakas never seemed to pay attention, and never answered to her words. He used to invite her to dinner and sleep with her one night, and perhaps some more, but they would end up quarrelling, and then she would go to find an officer and he a slave woman until they missed each other and started the process over again. No woman was as daring as Kitiara, no man as strong as Ariakas. Ariakan knew that, and he was aware of the turns and jumps of the relationship, though some things remained a mystery to him, making him feel at certain moments, effectively, as if he was a child._

_In fact, to be honest, he did not have much clue as to how it worked. Winks, half-hidden smiles, touches were lost upon him, except perhaps for a certain burning ache that suddenly overtook him whenever she got intentionally closer to him and remained there long after she was gone. He had bedded a woman once, but his father had given her to him and she had had no say in the matter. Besides, she had remembered him so much of Roselind that he hadn't enjoyed it much more than her, and later dropped the pastime completely._

_That was why he had needed her to make the first move that time._

_"You are a great rider, Ariakan!"she breathed out that day shortly before the war started, cleaning the pearls of sweat on her forehead as she went down her dragon. "Your father will be proud of you."_

_"I'm proud of myself, milady." he said. She laughed at those words._

_"This is a good answer indeed."_

_As she spoke, she began to walk towards him, and put a hand on his shoulder. Her caress had the effect of a magical current, and Ariakan had to inhale deeply. She was so...charming when she praised him, when she looked at him as if she wanted to..._

_"A good answer and a good race. "she continued, making a display of her diabolically seductive smile. "Would I dare to ask you to continue your good day in bed?"_

_Not more than half-conscious about his own acts, and scarcely ashamed of it, Ariakan nodded._

_* * * *_

_"Where are you going?" _

_Sitting on a sofa in the temple of Luerkhisis, where he was resting after that excruciatingly tiring spring day of the second year of the campaign, Ariakan watched with deep curiosity how his father pulled a dark cloak over his armour, and how he paced to and fro searching for random things as his sword or his gauntlets while he kept grumbling things._

_"Find Tombfrye at once!" the Highlord shouted to his lieutenant, ignoring Ariakan. As soon as the man nodded and turned away in the corridor, he spun round and continued his nervous walk._

_"My sword! If I find the damned idiot who has changed it of place...."_

_His son sighed then, and got up to fetch it. Nobody had changed it of place but Ariakas himself an hour before, when he had thrown it to the ground in a fit of temper after learning about the major defeats in the Solamnic front, but he supposed that he had been too angry to remember.  Not that he blamed him._

_"Here you are, Father ,"he said as he gave it to him, and then repeated his question. "Where are you going?"_

_Ariakas whirled) the weapon away from him abruptly, and sheathed it._

_"To kill her."_

_After that rather curt answer, he turned away towards the door, his cloak flying as a black shadow at his heels. However, as he was about to slam the iron door behind him, his expression changed, and he turned back._

_"Did I hear you say something?" he asked in a dangerous tone._

_Ariakan sustained his glance for a long time._

_"She won't allow you to kill her" he said, slowly. "Even degraded through her blind lust for power, she will be a dangerous and ruthless enemy for you."_

_"If she chooses to rebel against Takhisis's will and mine, we will fight."_

_Yes, but when had the will of Ariakas or of Takhisis ruled her life for a single moment? When had she wanted anything else than to fulfil her own ambition? Would she not fight to be the one to survive and, if she could, have the place she had always wanted in the forces of Darkness?_

_Would she...?_

_Suddenly, Ariakan saw in his mind an ambiguous smile, and felt two hardened but skilled hands crawling over his back as the heavy scent of sweat invaded his nostrils. He wavered._

_Ariakas would not kill her. He knew._

_* * * * *_

_You were brave, intelligent, magnificent; maybe invincible. You were the greatest woman I ever knew, and you would have been able to conquer the world for Takhisis if you had wanted. But you did not want it. Instead you got carried away by your selfish ambition, and did harm to our cause, like the Highlords…like my father, like all did.And now, your ashes begin to burn again in the ruins of Sanction with a great fire, or so they say. Do you really think it's more than an illusion? _

_Are you really a worthy flame, Kitiara Uth Matar?_

"Ariakan! You're talking to yourself!"

Slightly shaken by his companion's words, the prisoner returned to his present state once more. Lord Gunthar was there on the Nest, repeating once more that all the measures that were going to be taken were just preventive, and that there was no real certainty concerning that supposedly planned rash attack of the forces of Darkness. Next to him, Lord Michael and Lord Millar were escorting a man with a red beard and slightly pointed ears who had a sombre look upon his face, and that Ariakan did not suppose to be any other than the famous Tanis Half-Elven, the man who had killed his father.

"You were right, Ariakan", Thomas whispered then in his right ear. "It was about Kitiara. But I cannot believe it. I expected her to attack, but, so soon?"

Lord Gunthar began then to give practical instructions to end his speech, concerning how the Knights should be armed and where they should go. Everybody who had left for his lands should return to protect the Tower and Palanthas, and those who were going to leave soon should forget the very idea. This meant that Thomas would not be able to journey when he had intended, to stay for half of the year in his lands as he normally used to, and he sighed when he heard it.

"Unlucky news!" he muttered as the Knights began to disperse to return to their duties, old and new. "If that Tanis has been able to convince Lord Gunthar that it can be serious, he deserves my obedience, yet, is she really so imprudent? As far as I know, the Dark Lady is a brilliant strategist, and she must have seen that she's cornered in Sanction, so much as her army is said to have grown. To attack Palanthas she has to take the Tower first, and to take the Tower she has, first, to cross all the land between her and us, with her men and her supplies, and then to undertake a long siege. You who know her, can you believe her capable of that?"

Ariakan thought for a while while they went downstairs to reach the armoury, and shrugged his shoulders.

"Kitiara was a brilliant commander, and there was nothing she would not do in order to have power. Yes" he continued, seeing the wrinkles in Thomas's forehead "it can be said that she tripped once, but she's not dead yet. I'm with Lord Gunthar here: it's better to take care."

"Even if the strategy seems impossible?" Thomas insisted, with a scrutinising look that Ariakan found suddenly annoying.

"It's always safer to think that there might be something one does not know instead of attributing rashness to an intelligent enemy. Who taught me about not underestimating them?"

"I do not underestimate her" the Knight shrugged the accusation off with a matter-of-fact tone. "That's why I want to know everything I can. But this is idle talk: Lord Gunthar believes there might be danger, and he is not a man of light judgement."

"Of course not", Ariakan nodded. 

He did not know the nature of her plans any better than the rest of the Knights did, yet he was sure of one thing: to be careful about Kitiara could never be a light decision. Even though he doubted profoundly that she would win after deliberately scorning Takhisis and betraying those that had fought at her side, he had spent much time with her, and it was enough to know that she would never risk her life unless there was a possibility of victory at the crossing of the current. Probably she had a hidden card somewhere…

.

Or was she simply mad with desperation?

"Anyway, if we wait we will get the answers to those questions", he pointed out. "Come, I'll help you fetch your things. "

"And you?" Stopping in order to take another way that avoided the crowd of Knights of the Crown taking spears, Thomas shot another marked look at the prisoner. "What do you think about all this?"

"Me?" Ariakan shrugged his shoulders. "I told you already, I think that you should be careful, and…"

"I do not mean that!" Thomas interrupted. "They are your people."

The young man turned pale. Suddenly angry, he turned his face to Thomas and confronted him, vehemence written over his features.

"They are _not my people. "he hissed. "I served a goddess, they don't. They are her enemies, and so…"_

Just about to say "they are mine", Ariakan realised the upcoming mistake and shut up in time. Confused, he turned away, and he could hear the footsteps of the Knight following him in amazed silence, probably trying to digest what he had just said.

* * * * * * * * * *

Many busy days followed that one. The Knights had all returned now, their guests had been politely invited to leave for the security of the city, and preparations for a possible attack were made without delay, in spite of the persistent ugly weather. Ariakan had been allowed to help, and that decision did not surprise anybody who had been in the Tower during his captivity. As far as he could have, he had gained their trust, not to mention the usefulness of his experience in the Dragonarmies, and his eagerness was nothing but another point to his favour. Many whispered that it was evident that he had fully realised his past mistakes, and was trying now in earnest to stop those who had fought at his side in the War of the Lance. 

One day, just as he was getting to bed after doing a watch, he heard a noise, like many people talking in horrified whispers. Overtaken by his curiosity, he peered down at the courtyard, and he could see a group of Knights surrounding something at the gate, the sickly light of torches wringing soft sparks from their armours. Some words reached his ears in spite of the distance, "murdered", "she's in her way", "the truce is broken", and, waiting no more, he began to descend the stairs quickly.

"What is the matter?" he asked when he arrived. Some of the Solamnics gasped in surprise at the unexpected voice.

"Oh, it's you, Ariakan." The light from a torch blinded the young man for a moment, but slowly he was able to open his eyes again and look upon them. Sir Gared was there among them, as well as Lord Michael and Lord Gunthar, but not Thomas. "Have you left your post?"

"I was released, my lord" he justified himself. "I was going inside when I heard your voices. What happened?"

"Look!" Gunthar had dark circles upon his eyes, and a deathly pale face. With a grave movement of his hand, he pointed at the stone floor behind the feet of the group, and then motioned him to get nearer. Ariakan obeyed, and he could see three unlucky Knights, with the emblem of the Sword still on their armours, beheaded and smeared in dry blood.

"The spies in Sanction. A dragon brought them here about half an hour ago."

 "So they're coming", the prisoner nodded, staring fixedly at the bloody butchery. No emotion, no repugnance, no consternation showed through his eyes and countenance, used as he was to play with Tombfrye's "heads" since he was a child, but his gravity matched Lord Gunthar's and even Lord Michael's as he turned towards them.

"Yes, and she wants us to know." Lord Gunthar grumbled. "It's already too late to stop her, since we were unable to see her strategy. Tanis was right. Dolan!!

"Yes, my lord?" One of the youngest of the group, perhaps around Ariakan's age, bowed before the Grand Master.

"Send an urgent message to Tanis Half-Elven, who is right now in Palanthas. Tell him that his presence is urgently requested here, in the Tower of the High Clerist, and sign for me. Quick!"

Bowing once more, the young Solamnic went away, and Ariakan watched his disappearing silhouette as if in a trance until he was gone. Then, his gaze went again to the grotesque corpses.

"These men will be buried these morning, though the ceremony will have to be postponed for a while. " he heard Lord Gunthar's voice say. "The emissaries from Vingaard and Solanthus are bound to arrive this night, and from what we hear from them we'll determine the gravity of our situation and how much time is left for us."

"I do not believe it will be much." Lord Michael chimed in in his usual sombre tone.

"We'll pray to Paladine, who returned to help us in the last war and will do so again."

"Even if the patriarch of his Church is agonising." Sir Gared's voice sounded hollow. "Have you had any news from Elistan?"

"No, but he will not survive much longer." Lord Gunthar said. Shaking his head, he sighed. 

"Well, but now it will be much better if you all go to bed, except those who are on duty and you, Lord Michael, and Lord Millar. You will need to rest for tomorrow."

Half wrapped in a group of worried Solamnics who promptly obeyed the command, Ariakan soon found himself heading for his chamber. He was no less worried than they were, though his reasons were slightly different, and now he, too, was waiting eagerly for the break of dawn.

_They're coming._

But, he wondered once more, as every day in the turmoil of his thoughts, who were they?

* * * * * * * * * *

The sky was dark and ominous, of the colour of the storm, when, at dawn, every single Knight of the Tower was ordered to get out of bed and go to the courtyard. There was no sun, no light on the horizon, but there was no rain either, and the atmosphere was so oppressive that some even began to remember stories of the world just before the Cataclysm. It felt just as if a major catastrophe was going to happen.

Lord Gunthar's news were not any better. The Solamnic emissaries that had returned from Vingaard and Solanthus did not have any official communication except that everything was following its course, but, as they had been riding through the lands of Solamnia, they had begun to hear strange rumours of noises in the sky such as voices, slamming doors and weird chants that terrified the people. This did not leave any doubt as to the strategy that Kitiara Uth Matar had followed to bring her troops to the Tower quickly and without opposition, for, unfortunately for them, there wasn´t a single among the older Knights who didn´t remember those very noises from past battles.

"A flying citadel!" Thomas exclaimed with a groan. "Of course! Why didn't we think about it before?" 

"Most people believed that they had disappeared for ever, or had been lost or destroyed in the past conflagration", Ariakan answered in a whisper. "Not even I knew that at least one had remained in Sanction in Kitiara's power."

"I heard that they were created by Highlord Duulket Ariakas." Thomas added thoughtfully. "That he used evil magic to elevate those strongholds over the ground where they were built."

A sigh stealthily escaped the lips of the prisoner as he nodded his head. 

"Those rumours were true", he said. "It was he who planned and did it, and he who elevated them over the ground, with the help of a group of Black Robes loyal to Takhisis. I was there, you know."

No shocked look came to Thomas's eyes at the reminder, though Ariakan knew very well that any other knight would have jumped in disgust. He simply eyed him with curiosity, and a gleam of a sudden appreciation came to his face.

"Am I wrong if I assume you would be useful?" he asked. 

"Maybe." The younger man waited some time before adding. "But only if you get to take it, and, sincerely speaking, I doubt it."

"So do I. Anyway, come with me."

Ariakan did not attempt any other commentary, but followed Thomas in silence.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Here they come!"

The tension was unbearable for the Knights of the Tower. Proudly they had stood all morning with their Dragonlances and swords, listening to rumours over the thick mantle of grey clouds that covered the sky, and yet no dragon, no wall or no draconian had come into their view in all the time. When, at last, the fearful head of a Blue emerged from the threatening grey mass and the first shout resounded in the heavy air of the morning, everybody felt the air return to their lungs again, but it was only for a brief moment, for another dragon immediately followed the first, and then another, and another, until a whole squadron of reptiles came into view, flying towards them with their mouths wide open. 

"Get ready, by Kiri-Jolith! Don't mind them!"

Ariakan could hear the shouts of the commanders, and guessed that the greatest part of the Knights were being swayed by the terrific power of dragon fear that was one of the main weapons of the reptiles of Takhisis. He hadn't been allowed to fight, but as Lord Gunthar had determined that he could be useful for his knowledge of the inner government of flying citadels he had been nonetheless permitted to stay, and, of course, this meant having a weapon, in this case a non-consecrated sword. To take precautions, Thomas had been ordered to keep an eye on him to watch his movements, something both knew to be wholly unnecessary. 

"A really impressing spectacle" the prisoner breathed, unable to prevent his eyes from falling wide open. As he turned his head towards his companion, however, he saw his face was ashen grey, and that he didn't seem to have even heard what he had said.

"Dragon fear?" he asked, arching his eyebrows. Thomas nodded, his knuckles white on the magic silver of the Dragonlance.

"No way denying it, no way avoiding it", his trembling lips whispered, though Ariakan noted that he did not turn his eyes away or cower, like many others were doing. 

"And there is the flying citadel. By Sargonnas! I didn't believe it was _that _one!"

"What?" Thomas nearly shrieked.

"This one was the first my father did. With a Solamnic castle, by the way."

Both were forced to stare motionless, one with horror and the other with fascination, at that impressing phenomenon that was a great stone citadel flying over a mountain of clouds. The walls of the old building were somewhat broken at the sides, and rocks fell sometimes into the air, showing that it had been wrung from the very ground with a great strength that surpassed the human possibilities. This strength, created by magical means, was the same that pushed it now to give it that deadly speed at which it was approaching them, surrounded by squadrons of dragons that breathed fire and lightning.

"Dragons, get ready! But do no attack until you are attacked!" a voice rung in the air above their heads. It was the chief of the squadron of Bronze dragons that had been able to come in time to their aid, though the very truce that the voice was remembering didn't allow them to fight unless provoked. In any case, Ariakan supposed that this truce would be history soon enough.

"Take impulse! Stand still! Prepare your…!"

"But, what…?"

All of a sudden, the young man began to feel a strange sensation, as if something was not going well. He looked up, and saw Tanis Half-Elven shouting something in the ear of Lord Gunthar, and then he met Thomas's suspicious eyes for a brief moment. The other Knights had somewhat uneasy expressions as well as they started to look up and point to the sky, to the squadrons of dragons and to the flying citadel that was flying above them.

Without stopping.

"What are they doing?" Thomas cried, throwing the lance aside with a clank.

"Palanthas." Ariakan voiced the evidence with a tone that wasn't more than a whisper. "What do you bet?"

(to be continued)

General Note: This has been written following closely the third volume of the Dragonlance Legends, "Test of the Twins". 


End file.
